Why Culture Matters in International Institutions

WHY CULTURE MATTERS ININTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS:
THE MARGINALITY OF HUMANRIGHTS ATTHE WORLDBANK

By Galit A. Sarfaty*
Why do international institutions behave as they do? International organizations (IOs) have
emerged as signicant actors in global governance, whether they are overseeing monetary pol-
icy, setting trade or labor standards, or resolving a humanitarian crisis. They often execute
international agreements between states and markedly inuence domestic law, which makes
it important to analyze howinternational institutions behave and make policy. Conducting an
ethnographic analysis of the internal dynamics of IOs, including their formal and informal
norms, incentive systems, and decision-making processes, can usefully aid in understanding
institutional behavior and change. This article analyzes the organizational culture of one par-
ticularly powerful international institutionthe World Bank (the Bank)and explores why
the Bank has not adopted a human rights policy or agenda.
1
Established on July 1, 1944, the World Bank has become the largest lender to developing
countries, making loans worth over $20 billion per year.
2
Its more than ten thousand employ-
ees (including economists, sociologists, lawyers, and engineers, among others) are engaged in
the Banks mission of poverty reduction, which it primarily carries out through its develop-
ment lending.
3
While the institution has adopted various social and environmental policies
* Assistant Professor in Legal Studies and Business Ethics, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania;
Afliated Faculty, Harvard LawSchool, Programon the Legal Profession. I thank Alfred Aman, Arthur Applbaum,
Daniel Bradlow, Rachel Brewster, John Comaroff, Cosette Creamer, Adrian Di Giovanni, Oona Hathaway, Lau-
rence Helfer, Jacob Levy, Joseph Masco, Paul McDonald, Sally Engle Merry, Mindy Roseman, Adam Saunders,
Henry Steiner, and Cora True-Frost for comments, as well as the World Bank employees who graciously agreed to
be interviewed. This research was generously supported by grants fromthe National Science Foundation, the Social
Science Research CouncilMellon Mays Program, and the University of Chicagos Center for the Study of Race,
Politics, and Culture. Earlier versions were presented at the American Society of International Law Annual Meet-
ings New Voices Panel, the Law and Society Association Annual Meeting, the American Academy of Arts and
Sciences, Harvard Universitys International LawInternational Relations Seminar, the Human Rights Program
Fellows Lunch and Program on the Legal Profession Workshop at Harvard Law School, and the Leadership and
Corporate Accountability Workshop at Harvard Business School. I am grateful to participants for their feedback.
1
While the Bank has no operational policies on human rights per se, its policy on indigenous peoples addresses
the rights of those peoples. WORLDBANK, THE WORLDBANK OPERATIONAL MANUAL, OP 4.10, para. 1 ( July
2005) (Indigenous Peoples), available at http://go.worldbank.org/DZDZ9038D0/ (aiming at ensuring that the
development process fully respects the dignity, human rights, economies, and cultures of Indigenous Peoples).
2
The World Bank Group, one of the United Nations specialized agencies, consists of ve closely associated insti-
tutions owned by member countries, which carry ultimate decision-making power on all matters, including policy,
nancial, and membership issues. The term World Bank Group encompasses all ve institutions, the Interna-
tional Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD), the International Development Association (IDA), the
International Finance Corporation, the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency, and the International Centre
for Settlement of Investment Disputes. World Bank, as I use it in this article, refers specically to two of the ve,
the IBRD and the IDA.
3
Out of the tenthousandBankemployees, about seventhousandare basedat headquarters inWashington, D.C.,
and three thousand work in the eld ofces.
647
andworks onissues as diverse as judicial reform, health, andinfrastructure, it has not instituted
any overarching operational policy on human rights. Human rights concerns are not system-
atically incorporated into the everyday decision making of the staff or consistently taken into
consideration in lending; incorporation of human rights is ad hoc and at the discretion of
employees.
4
Inaddition, many employees consider it tabootodiscuss humanrights ineveryday
conversation and to include references to themin their project documents. The marginality of
human rights stands in contrast to the Banks rhetoric in ofcial reports and public speeches
by its leadership, which have supported human rights.
5
What do I mean by saying that human rights is a marginal issue within the Bank? In general,
it means that the Bank maintains no comprehensive or consistent approach on the policy and
operational levels. In more specic terms, it means that the Bank lacks at least the three fol-
lowing provisions/safeguards: (1) a staff policy to mitigate the impact of its projects on human
rights; (2) a requirement to consider countries obligations under international human rights
law when its employees engage in country dialogues or draft Country Assistance Strategies;
6
and (3) guidelines on when it would suspend operations because of human rights violations.
Why should we be surprised that human rights are such a marginal issue at the World Bank?
I nd a few compelling reasons why the Banks approach to human rights (or lack thereof)
appears counterintuitive. First, other institutions involved in poverty reduction, including the
United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Childrens Fund, and the
United Kingdoms Department for International Development, have adopted human rights
policies or a rights-basedapproachtodevelopment.
7
Second, the Bankhas beenpressedby civil
society organizations and internal advocates to integrate human rights considerations into its
projects andprograms. Third, private nancial institutions have beguntoaddress humanrights
more openly out of concernfor their public image andthe reputational risk of committing human
4
There are some minor exceptions. For instance, some Bank documents have referred to human rights, and cer-
tain employees work indirectly on human rights, particularly economic, social, and cultural rights. See Mac Darrow
&Louise Arbour, The Pillar of Glass: Human Rights in the Development Operations of the United Nations, 103 AJIL
446, 487 & n.188 (2009).
5
See, e.g., HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS MUTUAL REINFORCEMENT (Philip Alston &
Mary Robinson eds., 2005) (with contributions by senior World Bank ofcials, including former president James
Wolfensohn); World Bank, Development and Human Rights: The Role of the World Bank, Report No. 23,188 (Sept.
30, 1998) [hereinafter World Bank, Report No. 23,188]; Human Rights and Development, DEV. OUTREACH
(World Bank Inst.), Oct. 2006 [hereinafter DEV. OUTREACH].
6
The World Bank normally develops a Country Assistance Strategy every one to three years in consultation with
the borrower countrys government and civil society organizations. This strategy addresses the countrys top devel-
opment priorities, creditworthiness, and past portfolio performance, as well as the level of nancial and technical
assistance that the Bank seeks to give the country.
7
United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], Human Rights in UNDP: Practice Note (Apr. 2005);
Laure-Hele`ne Piron & Francis Watkins, DFID Human Rights Review: A Review of How DFID Has Integrated
Human Rights into Its Work ( July 2004), available at http://www.odi.org.uk/rights/Publications/DFIDRights
Review07.04.pdf; UNICEF, Guidelines for Human Rights-Based Programming Approach, CF/EXD/1998-04 (Apr.
21, 1998), available at http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdd/3f82adbb1.pdf. A rights-based approach typically
requires institutional change and the creationof accountability mechanisms so that humanrights are treated as con-
stitutive of the goal of development. Yet scholars have challenged its effectiveness in achieving practical, on-the-
ground changes in development work. See PETER UVIN, HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT (2004); Philip
Alston, Ships Passing in the Night: The Current State of the Human Rights and Development Debate Seen Through the
Lens of the MillenniumDevelopment Goals, 27 HUM. RTS. Q. 755 (2005); Mac Darrow&Amparo Tomas, Power,
Capture and Conict: A Call for Human Rights Accountability in Development Cooperation, 27 HUM. RTS. Q. 471,
537 (2005); Celestine Nyamu-Musemi & Andrea Cornwall, What Is the Rights-Based Approach All About? Per-
spectives from International Development Agencies (Inst. for Dev. Stud. Working Paper No. 234, 2004).
648 [Vol. 103:647 THE AMERICAN JOURNAL OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
rights abuses.
8
Eventhe International Finance Corporation, the Banks private-sector arm, has
openly adopted human rights as part of a risk management approach, although its engagement
in selective human rights has been subject to criticism by nongovernmental organizations
(NGOs).
9
Despite these three factors, the Bank has not adopted a strategy on human rights.
Whether and howthe Bank should adopt human rights has been discussed at length by aca-
demics and civil society advocates.
10
This literature primarily focuses on legal arguments for
binding the Bank and its member countries to international human rights obligations. It does
not investigate the internal workings of the bureaucracy so as to understand why the Bank has
yet to adopt and internalize humanrights norms. This article offers anempirical analysis of the
Banks organizational culture based on extensive ethnographic eld research at the institution
itself, including personal interviews, participant observation, and analysis of Bank documents.
This research sheds light on why organizational change has not occurred and suggests condi-
tions under which it could happen. I selected this case because the Bank has neither adopted
nor internalized human rights norms despite external pressure over the past two decades and
repeated attempts by insiders to push the human rights agenda forward.
11
I have found that the ways norms become adopted and ultimately internalized in an insti-
tution largely depend on their t with the organizational culture. When a new norm is intro-
duced, employees fromdifferent professional groups withinthe Bank oftenhave distinct inter-
pretive frames that they use to dene the norm, analyze its relevance to the Banks mission, and
apply it in practice. Proponents of a norm must take internal conict over competing frames
into account when trying to persuade staff members to accept it. They must also consider the
operational procedures, incentive system, andmanagement structure of the organizationwhen
determining the most effective strategy of implementation. Thus, to bring about internaliza-
tion, actors must adapt norms to local meanings and existing cultural values and practices
that is, they must vernacularize norms.
12
This article proceeds as follows. In part I, I argue that theories of international institutions
should account for the internal dynamics within organizational cultures, which shape how
8
See, for example, the Equator Principles for private banks, which are modeled after the International Finance
Corporations social and environmental policies. The Equator Principles ( July 2006), available at http://www.
equator-principles.com/.
9
See, e.g., Steve Herz et al., The International Finance Corporations Performance Standards and the Equator
Principles: Respecting Human Rights and Remedying Violations? (Aug. 2008) (representing views from several
NGOs, including the Center for International Environmental Law, Bank Information Center, Oxfam Australia,
and World Resources Institute), at http://www.ciel.org/I/IFC_Framework_7Aug08.html.
10
Recent books devoted to this topic include MACDARROW, BETWEENLIGHT ANDSHADOW: THE WORLD
BANK, THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND, AND INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS LAW 126 (2003);
BAHRAM GHAZI, THE IMF, THE WORLD BANK GROUP, AND THE QUESTION OF HUMAN RIGHTS (2005);
SIGRUN I. SKOGLY, THE HUMAN RIGHTS OBLIGATIONS OF THE WORLD BANK AND THE INTERNATIONAL
MONETARY FUND (2001).
11
Adoption refers to an institutions acceptance of a norm and its manifestation as a formal or informal rule.
Internalization refers tothe acceptance of a normby actors withinthe organizationwhoare persuadedof its merits
and validity through such processes as social learning, framing, and deliberation. Ryan Goodman and Derek Jinks
refer to these mechanisms as persuasion. They distinguishpersuasionfromcoercionand acculturation, whichentail
the adoption of norms without belief in their content, and as a result of social and cognitive pressures. Ryan Good-
man &Derek Jinks, How to Inuence States: Socialization and International Human Rights Law, 54 DUKE L.J. 621
(2004).
12
Sally Engle Merry, Transnational Human Rights and Local Activism: Mapping the Middle, 108 AM. ANTHRO-
POLOGIST 38, 39 (2006); see also SALLY ENGLE MERRY, HUMAN RIGHTS AND GENDER VIOLENCE: TRANS-
LATING INTERNATIONAL LAW INTO LOCAL JUSTICE 21922 (2006).
2009] 649 THE MARGINALITY OF HUMAN RIGHTS AT THE WORLD BANK
institutions change andinuence state behavior. Ethnographic researchcanhelpus analyze the
conditions under which norms are internalized, including the degree to which they should be
legalized. In part II, I consider why human rights have remained such a marginal issue at the
Bank. I review legal constraints in the Banks Articles of Agreement (or Articles) and failed
efforts from the early 1990s through 2004 to introduce a human rights agenda at the Bank,
as well as the uncertainlegal status andlimitedimpact of a 2006legal opiniononhumanrights.
Part III analyzes the Banks organizational culture, including formal and informal processes of
normsocialization and power dynamics between professional subcultures, and focuses on the
prestige of economists and the lower status of lawyers in the Legal Department. In part IV, I
emphasize the importance of framing norms toadapt toorganizational culture, examine battles
between Bank lawyers and economists over dening human rights norms and relating them
to the Banks mission, and discuss the most recent attempt to introduce human rights into the
Banks work. The conclusion analyzes the risks of achieving norm internalization at the Bank
by economizing rather than legalizing human rights.
13
I. INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS ANDORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
Analyzing NormDiffusion and the Limits of Legalization Through Ethnographic Research
Studies of international institutions should account for their internal dynamics, including
possible internal divisions between departments and individuals. Instead of focusing only on
state interests, we need to examine the bureaucratic practices of the background experts that
run the institutions. My study of the World Bank afrms that the actions and decisions of
bureaucrats are critical factors in shaping how the institution operates and inuences state
behavior. These experts do not speak in the language of interests or ideologiesthey speak
professional vocabularies of best practices, empirical necessity, good sense, or consensus val-
ues.
14
To understand the politics of expertise within IOs, we must analyze their underlying
organizational cultures.
Previous scholarship in international relations (IR) and international law has devoted little
attention to the normdynamics that operate within IOs and has emphasized the role of states
in shaping IO behavior. The rational actor theories that have historically dominated interna-
tional relationsrealismand functionalismare largely state-centric in their analyses of how
IOs behave.
15
IOs play a larger role inthe models developedby neoliberals andinstitutionalists,
who disaggregate the state andfocus onthe actions andinterests of individuals, interest groups,
and political institutions that shape state preferences. Constructivist accounts have further
departed from traditional IR theory by ascribing more autonomy to IOs, which serve as vehi-
cles for socializing states into complying with norms.
16
Yet while constructivists have moved
13
See note 187 infra and corresponding text.
14
David Kennedy, Challenging Expert Rule: The Politics of Global Governance, 27 SYDNEY L. REV. 5, 15 (2005).
15
See, e.g., ROBERT O. KEOHANE, AFTER HEGEMONY: COOPERATION AND DISCORD IN THE WORLD
POLITICAL ECONOMY (1984); NEOLIBERALISM AND ITS CRITICS (Robert O. Keohane ed., 1986); KENNETH
N. WALTZ, THEORY OF INTERNATIONAL POLITICS (1979).
16
See, e.g., John Gerard Ruggie, What Makes the World Hang Together? Neo-Utilitarianism and the Social Con-
structivist Challenge, 52 INTL ORG. 855 (1998); Alexander Wendt, Anarchy Is What States Make of It: The Social
Construction of Power Politics, 46 INTL ORG. 391 (1992).
international relations away fromstate-centric theories, they are only beginning tooffer empir-
ical accounts of IO behavior.
17
Eventhoughlegal scholars have increasingly treatedIOs as anobject of study, they have con-
centrated on factors other than the institutions organizational cultures and internal politics.
Interest-based models are rooted in a rationalist account of state interests and behavior.
18
Norm-based models, including managerial theory and the transnational legal process school,
have focused on why states comply with international norms.
19
Scholars have also measured
the extent of countries implementation of and compliance with treaties over time.
20
In addi-
tion, a growing literature on mechanisms of normsocialization seeks to explain howlawinu-
ences state behavior.
21
None of this scholarship, however, has investigated the process of norm
development within IOs. We lack evidence of what David Kennedy calls the vocabularies,
expertise, and sensibility of the professionals who manage . . . background norms and institu-
tions[, which] are central elements in global governance.
22
Ethnographic research can provide a comprehensive analysis of the organizational cultures
of IOs and how they change. It involves in-depth, case-oriented study, including long-term
eldworkwithinaninstitutionandin-depthinterviews. Conducting eldworkmeans that one
is usually living with and living like those who are studied. In its broadest, most conventional
sense, eldwork demands the full-time involvement of a researcher over a lengthy period of
time . . . and consists mostly of ongoing interaction with the human targets of study on their
home ground.
23
Anethnographer engages indirect, rsthand observationof employees daily
behavior and participates in their activities, such as training workshops, seminars, and project
meetings. Inaddition, he or she oftencarries out archival work andinterpretive analysis of doc-
uments.
Anthropological research aims at answering a question rather than testing a hypothesis. It
is not based on prior assumptions or models, like other methods. Rather, hypotheses and the-
ories emerge from the data, and are constantly evaluated and adjusted as the research pro-
gresses.
24
The following concisely summarizes the cycle of ethnographic research:
In ethnography . . . you learn something (collect some data), then you try to make sense
out of it (analysis), then you go back to see if the interpretation makes sense in light of
17
MICHAEL BARNETT & MARTHA FINNEMORE, RULES FOR THE WORLD: INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZA-
TIONS INGLOBAL POLITICS 6 (2004); Michael N. Barnett &Martha Finnemore, The Politics, Power, and Pathol-
ogies of International Organizations, 53 INTL ORG. 699 (1999) [hereinafter Barnett &Finnemore, Politics, Power].
18
See, e.g., JACK L. GOLDSMITH & ERIC A. POSNER, THE LIMITS OF INTERNATIONAL LAW (2005).
19
See ABRAM CHAYES & ANTONIA HANDLER CHAYES, THE NEW SOVEREIGNTY: COMPLIANCE WITH
INTERNATIONAL REGULATORY AGREEMENTS (1995); Harold Hongju Koh, Why Do Nations Obey International
Law? 106 YALE L.J. 2599 (1997).
20
See ENGAGINGCOUNTRIES: STRENGTHENINGCOMPLIANCEWITHINTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL
ACCORDS (Edith Brown Weiss & Harold K. Jacobson eds., 1998).
21
See, e.g., Goodman & Jinks, supra note 11.
22
Kennedy, supra note 14, at 7.
23
JOHN VAN MAANEN, TALES OF THE FIELD: ON WRITING ETHNOGRAPHY 2 (1988).
24
John Comaroff argues that anthropology always rests on a dialectic between the deductive and the inductive,
between the concept and the concrete, between its objectives and its subjects, whose intensions and inventions fre-
quently set its agendas. John Comaroff, Notes on Anthropological MethodMainly in the Key of E, in MICH
`
ELE
LAMONT & PATRICIA WHITE, WORKSHOP ON INTERDISCIPLINARY STANDARDS FOR SYSTEMATIC QUALI-
TATIVE RESEARCH 36, 37 (Report on National Science Foundation Supported Workshop, May 1920, 2005),
available at http://www.nsf.gov/sbe/ses/soc/ISSQR_workshop_rpt.pdf.
new experience (collect more data), then you rene your interpretation (more analy-
sis), and so on. The process is dialectic, not linear.
25
Therefore, when ethnographers interview subjects, they do not automatically assume that
they knowthe right questions toaskina setting.
26
Interviews are usually unstructuredor semi-
structured with open-ended questions developed in response to observations and ongoing
analysis. The questions are designed to seek respondents interpretations of what is happening
and allow them to describe problems, policy solutions, their rationales, and so forth in their
ownwords. My ethnographic study of the World Bank followed this researchprotocol. As part
of the researchfor my doctoral dissertationinanthropology, I workedandconductedeldwork
at the Banks headquarters in Washington, D.C., for approximately two years over a period of
four years, from2002 to 2006. During the summers of 2002 and 2004, I served as a consultant
and intern in the Legal Department and the Social Development and Environment Depart-
ments of the Latin America and the Caribbean Region. My two summers as an intern afforded
me the trust to gain access for a full year of eldwork, from September 2005 until July 2006.
While this article centers on my research during this time, I have revised the material on the
basis of recent developments.
My methods included interviews with more than seventy staff members (fromproject man-
agers to a former president), executive directors, U.S. Treasury ofcials, and NGO represen-
tatives; participation at Bank training sessions and seminars; and analyses of Bank projects and
documents. When I observed meetings or interviewed employees, I described the purpose of
my research and obtained their informed consent. Almost all interviews were recorded and
transcribed, and were conducted under the condition that I not use the employees names.
Thus, I list only their current (or former) position and department unless I was given verbal
consent to disclose their identity.
27
Conductingethnographic researchonthe Bankenabledme touncover the formal andinfor-
mal norms and the decision-making processes within the institution that shape state behavior.
I examined the institution from both the top down and the bottom up, focusing not only on
its leadership and administrative structure, but also on the tasks and incentives of the staff. I
analyzedthe informal practices andunspokenassumptions heldby employees that may be mis-
interpreted by or hidden from external observers, as well as the employees themselves. The
application of these techniques reveals the competing subcultures and other internal contes-
tations that may impede norm internalization.
Why do certain norms and policies become adopted in an institution while others do not?
An ethnographic analysis of organizational culture can explain howand why certain norms are
framed, interpreted, and implemented by IOofcials. IRscholars describe a case of unsuccess-
ful normdiffusion as the dog that didnt bark.
28
The diffusion of human rights at the World
Bank is more precisely a case of the dog that didntat least initiallybark. My empirical
research investigates why human rights norms have historically been rejected by the Bank and
25
MICHAEL H. AGAR, THE PROFESSIONAL STRANGER: AN INFORMAL INTRODUCTION TO ETHNOGRA-
PHY 62 (2d ed. 1996).
26
HELEN B. SCHWARTZMAN, ETHNOGRAPHY IN ORGANIZATIONS 54 (1993).
27
For those interviewees whogave their consent, I have attachedtheir full names or exact titles totheir quotations.
Otherwise, I have provided general descriptions of each interviewees position and department.
28
Jeffrey T. Checkel, Norms, Institutions, and National Identity in Contemporary Europe, 43 INTL STUD. Q. 83,
86 (1999).
have just recently moved closer to being adopted and internalized. Such cases hold the key to
identifying the conditions of possibility for the internalization of norms within IOs more
broadly.
I argue that the extent to which IO ofcials internalize norms is shaped by how the norms
are framed. In particular, the degree of legalization of human rights norms inuences
whether staff members adopt and internalize them. How much the legalization of human
rights impedes or facilitates internalization will depend on the organizational culture.
This study departs from conventional writing on legalization, including its denition and
its strategic value for implementing human rights. When legal scholars discuss legalization,
they often refer to the denition used in recent IR literature, a particular formof institution-
alizationcharacterized by three components: obligation, precision, and delegation.
29
Accord-
ing to this denition, legalization describes a particular set of characteristics that institutions
may (or may not) possess.
30
This conception is more applicable to an institutional regime or
arrangement (e.g., European Community law or WTO agreements) than to the structure or
status of a specic norm within an institution.
I focus here on a different aspect of legalizationthe extent to which norms are perceived
as having a legal status, often in relation to an existing legal system (e.g., the international
human rights regime). Thus, I ask to what degree norms are conceived of as legal norms (rather
than, say, moral, cultural, or professional norms). This understanding of legalization addresses
howa normand its legal expression relate to one another and whether legal norms, as a type,
operate differently from any other kinds of norms.
31
With respect to human rights, these
norms could be framed as moral or political concepts, as well as legal concepts. Amartya Sen
critiques the entirely law-dependent views of human rights and argues for dening them as
ethical rather than legal claims.
32
He believes that human rights can have inuence without
necessarily depending on coercive legal rules.
33
To take the thought one step further, some-
times a law-dependent view of human rights can hinder their inuence.
How, then, should one assess the strategic value of human rights legalization?
34
In the past
few decades, there has been a trend toward legalizing human rights and international institu-
tions in general.
35
Legal scholars have emphasized the benets of legalization, which tends to
bolster the credibility of normative commitments, increase compliance with international
norms, andprovide a highly rationalizedmode of clarifyingandresolvinginterpretive disagree-
ments.
36
Yet the legalization of human rights also incurs costs, particularly in institutional
environments that value nonlegal principles or seek nonlegal goals (such as respect for moral
29
Kenneth W. Abbott, Robert O. Keohane, AndrewMoravcsik, Anne-Marie Slaughter, &Duncan Snidal, The
Concept of Legalization, 54INTL ORG. 401, 401(2000); see also JUDITHGOLDSTEINETAL., LEGALIZATIONAND
WORLD POLITICS (2001).
30
Abbott, Keohane, Moravcsik, Slaughter, & Snidal, supra note 29.
31
Martha Finnemore, Are Legal Norms Distinctive? 32 N.Y.U. J. INTL L. & POL. 699, 701 (2000).
32
Amartya Sen, Human Rights and the Limits of Law, 27 CARDOZO L. REV. 2913, 2916 (2006).
33
Id. at 2921. Sen further elaborates on this argument in Amartya Sen, Elements of a Theory of Human Rights,
32 PHIL. & PUB. AFF. 315 (2004).
34
See Jack Donnelly, The Virtues of Legalization, in THE LEGALIZATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS: MULTIDISCI-
PLINARY PERSPECTIVES ONHUMANRIGHTS ANDHUMANRIGHTS LAW67 (Saladin Meckled-Garc a &Basak
C ali eds., 2006).
35
Derek P. Jinks, The Legalization of World Politics and the Future of U.S. Human Rights Policy, 46 ST. LOUIS
U. L.J. 357, 360 (2002).
36
Id. at 36162 (footnotes omitted).
values like dignity), as happened during the creation of human rights commissions in postau-
thoritarianregimes inthe 1990s, whenattempts were made todetachhumanrights fromtheir
legal moorings and redene them as a generalized language of public morality.
37
Citing the
harmful consequences of too much legalization, Laurence Helfer advocates a cost-benet view
of the process in his case study of the Caribbean backlash against human rights regimes.
38
Although Helfer adopts the IR denition of legalization described above and applies it to
human rights treaties rather than norms within institutions, he raises important questions
about the usefulness of legalization in particular contexts.
39
In examining why legal norms could have distinctive effects in certain institutional contexts
but not others, Martha Finnemore notes:
Anorganizationstaffedmostly by lawyers is likely tondlegal norms more persuasive than
other kinds of norms and to give them special weight. . . . If economists (or members of
some other profession) dominated policy making, we would expect norms of that profes-
sion, and not legal norms, to be particularly powerful.
40
Finnemores example aptly applies to the World Bank.
My research leads me to conclude that legalizing human rights would not be an effective
strategy for their adoption at the Bank, as I further describe in part III. Akey condition for the
internalizationof humanrights norms is nding aninstitutional t withthe organizational cul-
ture. Finding an institutional t requires that norms become vernacularized so that they res-
onate with preexisting understandings in a dynamic process of matchmaking.
41
Proponents
of a norm should act strategicallyfor example, through norm framing, cuing, or persua-
sionto ensure congruence with the organizational culture.
Looking Beyond Member States
One can analyze the relationship between the Bank and member states by applying a prin-
cipal-agent model that includes multiple principals. The multiple-principals problem is an
extension of the traditional model, which assumes that principals and agents are unitary actors.
42
Multiple principals may holdcompeting preferences andmay be unable toexert effective oversight
of the agent. Because oversight is costly, they are often forced to delegate authority, leaving the
agent withconsiderable independence.
43
Bureaucratic drift occurs whenanagency makes deci-
sions or implements policies that diverge fromthe goals preferred by the principals.
44
Bureau-
cratic drift is a common characteristic of the multiple-principals situation since a conict of
37
See Richard Ashby Wilson, Is the Legalization of Human Rights Really the Problem? Genocide in the Guatemalan
Historical Clarication Commission, in THE LEGALIZATION OF HUMAN RIGHTS, supra note 34, at 81, 84.
38
Laurence R. Helfer, Overlegalizing Human Rights: International Relations Theory and the Commonwealth
Caribbean Backlash Against Human Rights Regimes, 102 COLUM. L. REV. 1832 (2002).
39
Id.
40
Finnemore, supra note 31, at 704.
41
Amitav Acharya, HowIdeas Spread: Whose Norms Matter? NormLocalization and Institutional Change in Asian
Regionalism, 58 INTL ORG. 239, 243 (2004).
42
Richard W. Waterman & Kenneth J. Meier, Principal-Agent Models: An Expansion? 8 J. PUB. ADMIN. RES.
& THEORY 173, 181 (1998).
43
See id.; Gary J. Miller, The Political Evolution of Principal-Agent Models, 8 ANN. REV. POL. SCI. 203, 21112
(2005).
44
See, e.g., Murray J. Horn&KennethA. Shepsle, Commentary onAdministrative Arrangements and the Political
Control of Agencies: Administrative Process and Organizational Form as Legislative Responses to Agency Costs, 75 VA.
interests among principals may prevent them from agreeing on common goals and exerting
oversight of the agency.
45
Such paralysis often affects international institutions, where there is
a long chain of delegation from the principals (or member states) to the IO agent.
46
The World Bank typies the multiple-principals problem, where member governments
serve as principals that collectively form the Board of Executive Directors. The board is com-
posed of twenty-four executive directors who represent countries or country groups.
47
Under
the Banks Articles of Agreement, the board serves as the institutions policymaking organ,
while the president and senior management are responsible for operational, administrative,
andorganizational issues.
48
The executive directors thus serve as principals that delegate certain
tasks and responsibilities to agency ofcials. When member countries hold competing pref-
erences andcannot achieve consensus ona policy, bureaucratic drift may ensue. Inviewof their
difculty in exerting oversight, the member countries are forced to delegate authority to the
agency ofcials. My study of the Banks internal decision-making process conrmed these
dynamics, showing that employees operate quite independently of the board. They carry out
certain sensitive management issues without board approval or involvement.
An institutional constraint that favors agency autonomy is the short time horizon of board
members as compared with that of the Bank president. Most executive directors serve for just
one or two two-year terms, whereas the presidents tenure can amount to ve years, or more
if he or she is reelected. Roughly a third of the board members change each year. As a result,
the directors knowledge of the history andpractice of the institutionis quite narrow.
49
Accord-
ing to former director Moises Na m, in an interview by Catherine Caueld, It is impossible,
even for the fewof themthat have a good prior understanding of the institution, to master the
overwhelming array of complex issues on which they are supposed to develop an independent
opinion.
50
Na m further explains that the directors end up relying on the guidance of man-
agement because they are no match for a usually brilliant group of professionals with decades
of experience at the Bank.
51
Given the different time horizons of the president and the executive directors, the president
can incrementally introduce changes that will not be perceived as too radical by board mem-
bers, who are constrainedby their limitedinstitutional memory andinability, as multiple prin-
cipals, to exert effective oversight of the president. Former president James Wolfensohn
L. REV. 499 (1989); Mathew D. McCubbins, Roger G. Noll, & Barry R. Weingast, Structure and Process, Politics
and Policy: Administrative Arrangements and the Political Control of Agencies, 75 VA. L. REV. 431 (1989); Mathew
D. McCubbins, Roger G. Noll, &Barry R. Weingast, Administrative Procedures as Instruments of Political Control,
3 J. L. ECON. & ORG. 243 (1987).
45
Horn & Shepsle, supra note 44, at 502.
46
Daniel L. Nielson & Michael J. Tierney, Delegation to International Organizations: Agency Theory and World
Bank Environmental Reforms, 57 INTL ORG. 241, 242 (2003).
47
Five executive directors are appointed from the ve donor countries that contribute the largest number of
sharescurrently, France, Germany, Japan, the UnitedKingdom, andthe UnitedStates. The other nineteendirec-
tors are elected by regional groups of the other member countries. The Bank links voting power to members capital
subscriptions, which are based on a countrys relative economic strength.
48
The board meets once or twice a week to vote on loan and credit proposals and to make decisions on strategic
and policy items, including the administrative budget.
49
Interview with James Wolfensohn, former president, World Bank, New York, N.Y. ( June 14, 2007).
50
CATHERINE CAUFIELD, MASTERS OF ILLUSION: THE WORLD BANK AND THE POVERTY OF NATIONS
238 (Macmillan 1997) (1996). Na m, a former Venezuelan trade and industry minister, was an executive director
at the Bank representing a bloc of countries including Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nic-
aragua, Spain, and Venezuela.
51
Id. at 239.
adopted an incremental strategy for introducing change during his second ve-year term. By
then, he had served at the Bank longer than any board member and could get a lot more done
incomparisonto the achievements of his rst fewyears inofce. Wolfensohntreatedthe board
in the following manner:
[I]f you make the assumption to the Board that this is the way you operate, you very rarely
get challenged. . . . So if you can proceed in the institution with a set of assumptions that
you are doing things in the way they should be done, . . . you can incrementally do a tre-
mendous amount. Because its unlikely that anyone will challenge you. Because they think
that maybe this is the way the Bank should operate. So I got a lot of things done incre-
mentally without coming to the Board for big policy decisions. I knewthat if I went to the
Board on many of the policy decisions, [Id] run into a hell of a lot of problems.
52
Wolfensohnadoptedthis incremental strategy toadvance his anticorruptionagenda. He noted
that by the time he left, he was spending about six or sevenmilliondollars a year oncorruption,
although he had never presented a policy to the board.
53
Another important reason for the boards lack of signicant power over the Banks man-
agement and staff is that by tradition it operates only by consensus (with fewexceptions). His-
torically, the board has been deeply divided over the issue of human rights. Some member
states, like China and Saudi Arabia, strongly oppose an explicit human rights agenda that
would include the protection of civil and political rights (which they view as a reection of
Western values). Others, like India andBrazil (middle-income countries that are responsible
for a substantial portion of the Banks revenue), fear that human rights would increase trans-
actioncosts for loans.
54
Countries that moderately support a humanrights agenda do not agree
on what it should look like. Should the Bank adopt a rights-based approach to development,
a human rights operational policy, or a human rights impact assessment that would limit the
possibility that projects wouldcause humanrights violations? The diversity of the boardmakes
it difcult to agree on a single approach. Because the board operates by consensus, disagree-
ments on such issues as human rights have simply resulted in inaction.
Bank ofcials have recognized the unlikelihood of getting board support for a human rights
agenda andhave avoidedproposing it, fearing a backlashagainst the issue if they triedandfailed
to gain approval. Instead, internal advocates are introducing sensitive topics like human rights
not through board approval but by making incremental changes in operations (discussed in
part IVbelow). In other words, they are supporting a strategy that falls under the radar screen
of member states.
II. THE ROLE OF HUMANRIGHTS AT THE WORLDBANK
Over the past two decades, NGOs and internal advocates have pressured the Bank to intro-
duce a humanrights agenda at the institution. One wouldexpect the Bank tohave beenswayed
52
Interview with Wolfensohn, supra note 49.
53
Id.
54
There are other reasons for their opposition, including their viewthat a human rights agenda would encroach
on their sovereignty and turn the institution into a human rights enforcer. Some countries fear that human rights
wouldbecome a conditionality onlending, whichmight adversely affect borrower countries withpoor humanrights
records while not punishing donor countries with similar records. Finally, certain countries view human rights as
a political consideration that is restricted under the Banks Articles of Agreement.
by this pressure, as well as by the growing trend of corporations and development agencies to
address human rights more openly. That it has not been so swayed is explained by many schol-
ars onthe basis of legal reasons. Inthe rst twosections, I clarify the uncertainty over the Banks
human rights obligations under international law and analyze legal restrictions in the Banks
Articles of Agreement that have historically served as the major obstacle to the Banks direct
engagement in human rights. I then describe failed efforts at reform by internal advocates, as
well as the limited impact of the 2006 legal opinion on human rights by a former general
counsel.
55
The Banks Obligations Under International Law
What does international law say about the World Banks responsibilities with respect to
human rights? Does the Bank have an obligation to ensure that its projects, programs, and
internal policies conformto international humanrights standards, and that its activities do not
facilitate human rights abuses? Does it have a responsibility to promote human rights in its
member states?
To address these questions, the rst, most important issue to explore is the extent to which
the Bank as an international organization is bound by rules of customary international law
beyond its charter, including customary international lawnorms on human rights. Commen-
tators continue todebate boththis questionandevenwhat constitutes customary international
law on human rights.
The Bank functions as an international body with legal personality due to the nature of the
specic powers granted under [its] Articles (notably the power to conclude agreements gov-
erned by international law, and the provisions establishing [its] relationship with other inter-
national organisations), [its] entitlement to specied privileges and immunities, and the fact
that [it] operate[s] extensively within the international sphere.
56
According to legal scholars,
the Banks status as an international legal person implies its role as both a subject and an object
of international responsibilities and obligations, possibly including obligations incumbent
upon the organization under international agreements and customary international law.
57
Because international organizations, unlike states, cannot become parties totreaties, they are
not directly bound by human rights treaties. Yet, according to the International Court of Jus-
tice, international organizations can be bound by obligations under general principles of inter-
national law
58
and capable of possessing international rights and duties.
59
IOs are also bound
55
RobertoDanino, Legal OpiniononHumanRights andthe Workof the WorldBank( Jan. 27, 2006), at http://
www.iwatchnet.org/?qen/node/335 [hereinafter Danino Opinion].
56
DARROW, supra note 10, at 126.
57
See, e.g., Daniel D. Bradlow, The World Bank, the IMF, and Human Rights, 6 TRANSNATL L. &CONTEMP.
PROBS. 47, 63 (1996); IbrahimF. I. Shihata, The World Bank and Human Rights: An Analysis of the Legal Issues and
the Record of Achievements, 17 DENV. J. INTL L. & POLY 39, 47 (1988). See generally DARROW, supra note 10;
SKOGLY, supra note 10; Fergus MacKay, Universal Rights or a Universe unto Itself ? Indigenous Peoples Human Rights
and the World Banks Draft Operational Policy 4.10 on Indigenous Peoples, 17 AM. U. INTL L. REV. 527 (2002).
58
See Interpretation of the Agreement of 25 March 1951 Between the WHO and Egypt, Advisory Opinion,
1980 ICJ REP. 73, 8990 (Dec. 20).
59
See Reparation for Injuries Suffered in the Service of the United Nations, Advisory Opinion, 1949 ICJ REP.
174 (Apr. 11).
by jus cogens, or peremptory norms of international law such as the prohibition against geno-
cide.
60
In addition, the Bank has obligations as a specialized agency of the United Nations.
61
The Bank must respect the purposes and principles in the UNCharter, including the human
rights purposes as stated in Article 55, as elaborated in the [Universal Declaration of Human
Rights] and the body of international human rights lawbuilt upon it.
62
Furthermore, it must
have due regard for decisions of the UNSecurity Council, although it is not required to fol-
low the recommendations of the UN specialized human rights agencies.
63
The second question to ask about the Banks obligations under international lawis whether
the institution has any obligations vis-a`-vis its members. Because only some of the member
states are parties to particular human rights agreements, the Banks responsibilities would vary
withrespect todifferent members. Whether the Bank shouldgoas far as enforcing states treaty
obligations through loan conditionalities or helping states to implement their treaty obliga-
tions through technical assistance remains a matter of debate.
64
The nal issue concerns what role, if any, international nancial institutions (IFIs) like the
Bank should play in the progressive development of international lawfor example, by pro-
moting human rights in development. While international conferences, such as the 1993
Vienna World Conference on Human Rights and the 2000 Millennium Summit, have rec-
ognizedthe interdependence of humanrights anddevelopment,
65
the rules of customary inter-
national law in this area are still subject to dispute.
Insummary, legal scholars have yet toagree onthe international legal obligations of the Bank
with respect to human rights. The institution has skirted most of these arguments and instead
focused on its limited mandate under the Articles of Agreement, whose interpretation has
become a locus of contention among Bank staff, advocates, and policymakers.
66
The Banks Articles of Agreement
In addressing why the Bank has not adopted a human rights agenda, many scholars,
policymakers, and advocates have focused on restrictions in the Articles of Agreement, or
founding constitution. The legal restrictions arise from two provisions, Article IV, section 10
and Article III, section 5(b), which place limits on the factors that staff members may consider
in their decisions.
67
Article IV, section 10 prohibits political activity and permits only eco-
nomic considerations in decision making:
60
H. G. Schermers, The Legal Bases of International Organization Action, in A HANDBOOK ON INTERNA-
TIONAL ORGANIZATIONS 401, 402 (Rene-Jean Dupuy ed., 2d ed. 1998).
61
See Agreement Betweenthe UnitedNations andthe International Bankfor ReconstructionandDevelopment,
Art. IV(2), Sept. 16 & Nov. 15, 1947, 16 UNTS 346, 348.
62
63
See SKOGLY, supra note 10, at 99102; Bradlow, supra note 57, at 63.
64
Daniel D. Bradlow, Should the International Financial Institutions Play a Role in the Implementation and
Enforcement of International Humanitarian Law? 50 U. KAN. L. REV. 695 (2002).
65
At the 1993 Vienna World Conference, a consensus afrmed, Democracy, development and respect for
human rights and fundamental freedoms are interdependent and mutually reinforcing. . . . The international com-
munity should support the strengthening and promoting of democracy, development and respect for human rights
and fundamental freedoms in the entire world. United Nations World Conference on Human Rights, Vienna
Declaration and Programme of Action, para. 8 ( June 25, 1993), UN Doc. A/CONF.157/24, at 20 (Part I) (Oct.
13, 1993), reprinted in 32 ILM 1661 (1993).
66
See sources cited supra note 10.
67
International Bank for Reconstruction and Development, Articles of Agreement, Art. IV, 10, & Art. III,
5(b), July 22, 1944, 60 Stat. 1440, 2 UNTS 134 [hereinafter Articles of Agreement].
The Bank and its ofcers shall not interfere in the political affairs of any member; nor
shall they be inuencedintheir decisions by the political character of the member or mem-
bers concerned. Only economic considerations shall be relevant to their decisions, and
these considerations shall be weighed impartially in order to achieve the purposes stated
in Article I.
Article III, section 5(b) limits the factors that the Bank may consider in granting loans and
restricts political considerations: The Bank shall make arrangements to ensure that the pro-
ceeds of any loan are used only for the purposes for which the loan was granted, with due atten-
tion to considerations of economy and efciency and without regard to political or other non-
economic inuences or considerations. These provisions have historically stymied the Banks
explicit engagement with human rights, particularly civil and political rights, which have been
interpreted as political considerations. As a result, Bank employees have claimed that their
work can promote human rights only in an indirect way.
Fromtime to time, the general counsels ofce has rendered an authoritative interpretation
of the Articles with respect to human rights, including what is considered an allowable eco-
nomic consideration and a prohibited political one. The ofcial interpretation has evolved
over time to reect an incremental expansion of the Banks mandate and a multifaceted view
of development, including not only its economic dimensions but also its political, social, and
cultural ones.
68
Former general counsel Ibrahim Shihata authored the most inuential opin-
ions, which broadened the Banks scope of work and acknowledged the centrality of human
rights within development: While the Bank is prohibited from being inuenced by political
considerations, its staff increasingly realize that human needs are not limited to the material
basic needs often emphasized in the 1970s. . . . [N]o balanced development can be achieved
without the realization of a minimum degree of all human rights . . . .
69
In the past two decades, Shihatas opinions and memos opened legal room for the Banks
involvement in areas that were once deemed too political, such as legal and judicial reformand
anticorruption efforts. Yet human rights, especially certain civil and political rights, have still
been considered too political for the Bank to address directly. While restrictions in the Articles
of Agreement have continued to serve as a legal obstacle to the adoption of a human rights
approach to its work, bureaucratic obstacles have been more critical in impeding internal
efforts at reform.
Efforts at Reformand Reasons for Failure
Institutional memory points to the early 1990s as the setting of one of the rst internal cam-
paigns to integrate human rights into the Banks operational work. This initiative was led by
an interdisciplinary working group of operational staff from the African region, who framed
it in the context of a new institutional focus on good governance as a key ingredient for
68
69
IBRAHIMF. I. SHIHATA, THE WORLDBANK IN A CHANGING WORLD: SELECTEDESSAYS 133 (Franziska
Tschofen & Antonio R. Parra eds., 1991).
development.
70
While the working group organized quite a few brown-bag lunches, work-
shops, and symposiums, it became inoperative in the mid- to late 1990s, partly because many
of its members were diverted by their work on governance and corruption, which had become
a priority at the institution. In addition, some of the senior ofcials who had previously sup-
ported the working group had retired or moved to other departments. Without support from
senior staff, the members of the working group could not easily invest resources in human
rights research and education.
In 1995 James Wolfensohn became president of the Bank and ushered in an era of more
open dialogue on human rights. According to Wolfensohn, it took about three to four years
to impress upon the staff that human rights was an important issue within the context of the
Banks work.
71
Under his leadership, the Bank published its rst ofcial report on the subject,
which recognized the institutions role in promoting and protecting human rights but stopped
short of stating that it had an international legal obligation to do so.
72
Since the publication
of the report in 1998, documents issued by the Bank and speeches by its ofcials have peri-
odically mentioned human rights, although the Board of Executive Directors has continued
to oppose their ofcial incorporation into institutional policy.
73
Wolfensohn recognized the
unlikelihood of getting the board to spearhead a human rights agenda since it was and remains
deeply divided over the issue. Wolfensohn and senior management appealed to employees in
an effort to build support within the institution.
The momentumfor a humanrights strategy beganin2002. OnMay 2of that year, the Bank
organized an all-day internal workshop entitled Human Rights and Sustainable Develop-
ment: What Role for the Bank? which was attended by about a hundred employees from
across the institution. The purpose was to increase the staff s awareness of human rights and
todiscuss possible implications for the Banks operations. Ina plenary address tothe workshop,
Wolfensohn announced that the mood was changing and that it was time to take the words
human rights out of the closet.
74
He then invited some senior staff members to lead an insti-
tution-wide task force on human rights and draft a strategy paper that he could present at the
Banks next annual meetings.
75
Coordinated by the Social Development Department, the task force included staff fromthe
Legal, HumanDevelopment, External Affairs, Sustainable Development, andPoverty Reduc-
tion Departments. Involving representatives from a variety of departments was critical since
it allowed for cross-disciplinary dialogue and prevented one department from co-opting the
agenda. In June 2003, the task force presented a background report on human rights to the
70
See WORLD BANK, SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA: FROM CRISIS TO SUSTAINABLE GROWTH 6061 (1989)
(Underlying the litany of Africas development problems is a crisis of governance. . . . [What is required is] a sys-
tematic effort to build a pluralistic institutional structure, a determination to respect the rule of law, and vigorous
protection of the freedom of the press and human rights.).
71
72
World Bank, Report No. 23,188, supra note 5.
73
See UNITED KINGDOM DEPARTMENT FOR INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT, HUMAN RIGHTS: CORE
TEXT, para. 3.39 (DFID/SDD Human Rights Policy Paper), available at http://www.siyanda.org/docs_gem/
index_policy/hr_coretext.htm(concluding that [t]he reluctance of some of [the Banks] shareholders . . . to incor-
porate human rights into its development work could constrain its poverty reduction strategies).
74
Human Rights & Sustainable Development: What Role for the Bank? Summary of Proceedings 12 (May 2,
2002) (Ko-Yung Tung, citing James Wolfensohn).
75
Id. at 11.
boards Committee on Development Effectiveness. The report reviewed the Banks existing
work in support of human rights and identied the difculties of adopting a human rights pol-
icy.
76
Althoughit recommendedthat the Bank adopt humanrights principles (insteadof a pol-
icy or a rights-based approach), the committee ultimately did not approve the report.
77
The
committee and senior management did not feel ready to approve a report on such a contro-
versial issue. According to one member of the task force, after reviewing multiple drafts, senior
ofcials just got cold feet and began to backpedal on passing a paper on human rights.
78
They called for more background studies and analysis before progressing any further on a
strategy.
Following the committees meeting, Wolfensohn assigned the human rights portfolio to a
managing director in charge of human development issues, Mamphela Ramphele.
79
During
the fall of 2003 and early 2004, Ramphele and her senior adviser, Alfredo Sfeir-Younis, pur-
sued a decentralized approach, selecting ofcials as regional human rights focal points who
were given the latitude to determine how they would address the issue. Some of the ofcials
did not follow up on this request, while others simply wrote stocktaking reports on their
regions human-rights-relatedactivities. These ofcials engagedinlittle coordinationwithone
another, and only a few meetings were held between them and senior management.
This phase of internal human rights advocacy reached a crescendo in March 2004.
80
On the
rst of the month, former UNhigh commissioner for human rights Mary Robinson and New
York University law professor Philip Alston convened a conference at the law school en-
titledHumanRights andDevelopment: Towards Mutual Reinforcement.
81
The conference
featured a keynote address by Wolfensohn and presentations by several senior ofcials, includ-
ing the recently appointed general counsel, Roberto Danino, who outlined what would later
become a legal opinion on human rights. But the momentumseemed to stop soon thereafter.
Aside from the publication of a book based on the conference, no substantive follow-up took
place and no major resources were devoted to continuing the initiative. In addition, Ramphele
resigned from the Bank in April 2004.
In viewof the urry of activity over human rights between 2002 and 2004, many key ingre-
dients for the adoption of human rights norms and their eventual internalization seemto have
been in place: support fromthe president for the development of a strategy that would be pre-
sented to the board; the appointment of a managing director to oversee the human rights port-
folio; and the formation of an interdisciplinary task force composed of representatives from
different departments. Why, then, did the task force and the Ramphele-led initiative not suc-
ceed in gathering internal support and pushing through a strategy on human rights for the
Bank?
76
Interview with former ofcial, Social Development Department, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (Feb. 16,
2006).
77
The task force did not bring the issue to the full Board of Executive Directors but only to its Committee on
Development Effectiveness, since it did not want to sharpen the divisions on the board. Members of the task force
now regret that they did not at least prepare a public statement based on their work.
78
Interview with former ofcial, Social Development Department, supra note 76.
79
The Banks managing directors rank directly below the president.
80
Interview with ofcial, Bank Information Center, Washington, D.C. ( Jan. 31, 2006).
81
See HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS MUTUAL REINFORCEMENT, supra note 5.
Those familiar with the events, including several members of the task force, cite many rea-
sons for the failure of the task force and the region-based initiative to capitalize on the growing
momentum toward adopting human rights norms. These reasons include excessive caution
and backpedaling on the part of senior management and the boards Committee on Devel-
opment Effectiveness; internal resistance to collaborating with civil society organizations; and
a lack of resources to carry out the requisite activities for increasing the staff s awareness of
human rights. Wolfensohn himself admits that he should have placed more emphasis on
human rights during his tenure:
The thing that I thought I had done was to establish the issue of human rights as being
an important issue for people at the Bank. If I didnt go far enough, then I made a
mistake. . . . Maybe in retrospect, I shouldve made a bigger deal of it and tried to put it
within the context of some legal framework or some administrative framework.
82
Moreover, the leaders of the task force were criticized for being too theoretical and for having
underemphasized the concrete practical steps that were needed to push the agenda forward.
83
Some thought Ramphele lacked the political capital and Bank experience to inuence senior
management. Even though she was a managing director, many employees considered her an
outsider since she hadjoinedthe Bank only in2000, andthey viewedher as lower instatus than
the two other managing directors since she was responsible for the soft issues like human
development.
84
Yet my interviews indicate that the most signicant factor behind the failure of the internal
attempts between 2002 and 2004 was a clash of expertise. Members of the task force com-
plained of the difculty of reaching a consensus of people fromdifferent sectors and disciplin-
ary backgrounds, who held divergent views on howto dene human rights and interpret them
withrespect tothe Banks operations.
85
The theoretically orientedpeople (whoemphasizedthe
indivisibility of human rights) clashed with the more pragmatically minded, who were mainly
concerned with operational issues and the need to make trade-offs between different rights in
projects withlimited budgets. One employee familiar withthe events explained that the failure
to bring about a human rights strategy was not due to resistance fromthe board or senior man-
agement but, rather, turf battles, and just the difculty of doing something like this in such
a multisectoral organization.
86
Amid internal disputes, the task force failed to build a con-
stituency of staff members in support of its mission.
The nal missing ingredient was support by the Legal Department, whichis surprising given
the centrality of the Articles of Agreement to determining the Banks role with respect to
82
83
Interview with ofcial, Human Rights Watch, Washington, D.C. ( July 20, 2006).
84
One employee described her as being pitchforked into her positionfromoutside the Bank, rather thanrising
fromwithin the ranks. As a result, she did not understand the Banks language well and had trouble effectively car-
rying out her mandate. Interview with ofcial, Development Research Group, World Bank, Washington, D.C.
(Feb. 14, 2006). In comparison, another managing director, Shengman Zhang, commanded more respect at the
Bank because he had worked at the institution for a long time, and all of the operational vice presidents reported
to him. Interview with ofcial, External Affairs Department, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (Mar. 15, 2006).
85
See infra pp. 67778.
86
Interview with ofcial, Human Development Network, World Bank, Washington, D.C. ( Jan. 24, 2006).
human rights. Although the task force included a lawyer fromthe department, he did not con-
sult with the general counsel and did not consider himself the departments ofcial represen-
tative onhumanrights. Other members of the Legal Department felt shut out fromthe process
by the task force.
87
In the fall of 2003, when Ramphele was leading the decentralized approach
with region-based human rights focal points, the Legal Department was only belatedly
included in the discussions. Finally, turf wars erupted between the Legal Department and the
regional departments, whichwanted to retaincontrol of the humanrights agenda and not cede
it to the lawyers.
Even though the dissension continued, the Legal Departments role in the discussions on
human rights expanded after the appointment of General Counsel Danino in late 2003.
Danino championed the human rights agenda over the next two years and paved the way for
recent efforts in that regard by members of the Legal Department (discussed in part IVbelow).
The 2006 Legal Opinion on Human Rights
On January 31, 2006, on his last day as general counsel, Danino dropped a bomb on the
desks of his staff (or, more accurately, intheir computers).
88
Members of the Legal Department
woke up that morning to an e-mail fromDanino with an attachment entitled Legal Opinion
on Human Rights and the Work of the World Bank.
89
Its topic did not surprise many, since
Daninohadchampionedthis issue duringhis tenure at the Bankandwas creditedwithopening
up space inside and outside the institution for a dialogue on human rights. He set up a small
working group on human rights only one month after arriving at the Bank. Over the next two
years, he strengthened the Banks relationship to the Ofce of the UN High Commissioner
for Human Rights, and gave speeches on the importance of human rights to the Banks work.
The closing statement of Daninos legal opinionreads: [T]he Articles of Agreement permit,
and in some cases require, the Bank to recognize the human rights dimensions of its develop-
ment policies and activities since it is nowevident that human rights are an intrinsic part of the
Banks mission.
90
This viewrepresents a signicant departure fromthe previous ofcial inter-
pretation by General Counsel Shihata.
91
Both Shihata and Danino interpreted provisions in
the Articles that bear on human rights, particularly those that prohibit political activity and
permit only economic considerations in decision making.
92
While Shihata was the rst to
acknowledge the relevance of human rights for the Bank, he never went so far as saying (as
Danino did) that sometimes a countrys human rights violations should be taken into account.
He also did not recognize the indivisibility of rights, as he noted that there are limits on the
possible extent to which the World Bank can become involved with human rights of civil and
87
Interview with ofcial, Legal Department, World Bank, Washington, D.C. ( Jan. 4, 2006).
88
Danino had submitted his resignation from the Bank on January 13, 2006, because of disagreements with
then-president Paul Wolfowitz.
89
Danino Opinion, supra note 55. The document was ofcially dated January 27, 2006. Danino concurrently
released a second legal note and related discussion note, Bank Activities in the Criminal Justice Sector.
90
Danino Opinion, supra note 55, at 9.
91
Aselection of Shihatas legal opinions and memorandums during his tenure from1983 to 1998 was published
in the book IBRAHIM F. I. SHIHATA, THE WORLD BANK LEGAL PAPERS (2000).
92
See note 67 supra and corresponding text. The provisions in question are quoted in the text following note 67.
political nature.
93
Moreover, Shihata applied a strict denition of economic factors as those
that have a direct and obvious economic effect relevant to [the Banks] work.
94
Danino called for a purposive interpretation of the Articles, examined against the back-
drop of the current international legal regime and the evolving understanding of develop-
ment.
95
He explained that there are instances in which the Bank may take human rights into
account, andothers inwhichit should. Indeed, there are some activities whichthe Bankcannot
properly undertake without considering humanrights.
96
Danino thenoutlined three increas-
ing levels of Bank involvement in human rights. First, he explained that the Bank may take a
supportive role by assisting a country in fullling its own human rights legal obligations (when
it expresses its wish to do so), provided that these commitments have an economic impact or
relevance.
97
Second, when a country has violated or not fullled its obligations, the Bank
should take them into consideration, again provided that they have an economic impact.
98
So far, Daninos opinion did not stray very far from the interpretations of Shihata.
When describing the third level, however, involving extreme cases, Danino differed from
Shihata in not requiring any economic impact and stating that the Bank should do something.
[I]n egregious situations, where extensive violations of human rights reach pervasive propor-
tions, the Bank should disengage if it can no longer achieve its purposes.
99
This is a major
departure from Shihatas view. Yet the opinion did not clarify what Danino considered to be
extensive violations or pervasive proportions. The lack of this further clarication leaves
a danger of ad hoc disengagement based on political factors.
Danino highlighted several other signicant issues in his opinion: (1) the indivisibility of
rights (the Bank shouldnot make a distinctionbetweendifferent types of humanrights (e.g.,
economic, social, and cultural rights as against civil and political rights);
100
(2) the existence
of economic evidence that establishes a correlation between human rights and economic
growth;
101
(3) the recognition of norms that traverse national boundaries (e.g., corporate or
nancial crimes, money laundering, corruption, environmental hazards, war crimes and
crimes against humanity);
102
and (4) the transformation of the concept of sovereignty in rela-
tion to human rights.
103
On the last point, the opinion cited customary international law on
human rights and argued that [t]he balance [between state sovereignty and human rights]
has . . . shifted in favor of protecting human rights, with the concept of sovereignty having
itself been transformed by the evolution of human rights standards and the pursuit of human
93
SHIHATA, supra note 69, at 109.
94
Bradlow, supra note 57, at 60 (quoting then-unpublished Legal Opinion on Governance, in SHIHATA, supra
note 91, at 271). According to some legal scholars, Shihatas economic test is ambiguous and does not contain clear
criteria. It does not stipulate the time period over which the directness and the obviousness of the economic impact
of the particular factor should be determined. If the time period for analysis is short, then relatively fewnonobvious
economic issues will have a direct and obvious effect. Id.
95
Danino Opinion, supra note 55, at 3.
96
Id. at 7.
97
Id.
98
Id.
99
Id. at 8.
100
Id. at 56.
101
Id. at 5.
102
Id. at 6.
103
Id. at 67.
rights enforcement at all levels of international law in global, regional and domestic fora.
104
Despite this statement, Danino did not go as far as saying that international organizations like
the Bank are bound by international human rights law. The only subjects of international
human rights legal obligations, according to Danino, are states.
Finally, the opinion reected the role of the private sector in inuencing developments
toward social responsibility at the Bank. Danino argued that it is standard practice among
private banks to rely on an analysis not only of economic factors, but of all factors that affect
investments, including social, environmental, and political ones.
105
In his speech at NYU of
March 2004 that formed the basis of this opinion, he further used the private sector as a model
for the Bank. He argued that the Bank, although a development institution, is primarily a
nancial institution. . . . [L]ike its private sector counterparts . . . [the Bank must consider] the
investment climate inthe recipient country.
106
Moreover, ina speechat the BankinOctober
2005, Daninocomparedhis experience there withhis workonWall Street where, he explained,
commercial andinvestment banks are similarly supposedtomake decisions basedoneconomic
considerations alone. Yet he noted that these banks all maintain political risk units that analyze
the political impacts of investments on countries and the political realities of their borrowers.
Thus, they recognize that political dimensions are relevant factors in decision making.
107
The Opinions Uncertain Legal Status and Limited Impact
The 2006 legal opinion seemed to clear the way for the Banks adoption of human rights
norms. It removed a major obstaclelegal restrictions in the Articles of Agreementthat
board members and employees had long cited as the reason why the Bank could not directly
engage in human rights. It also raised the status of Legal Department lawyers, who had played
a minimal role in earlier initiatives within the Bank but were nowin a position to lead internal
discussions on a possible human rights strategy.
Yet the ambiguity over its legal status and the resulting uncertainty over whether the Legal
Department shouldcirculate it as the Banks ofcial interpretationof the Articles limitedthe
opinions impact. General counsels customarily write legal opinions in response to a request
from the board, which then endorses them as ofcial Bank opinions. In the case of Daninos
opinion, senior Bank management, rather than the board, had asked the general counsel for
guidance on the issue of human rights.
The opinion was not submitted to the board because senior ofcials knewthat its members
were sharply divided over human rights and would very likely not endorse it.
108
Danino felt
that it was not the right time to confront the board on this issue. He stated that it was impos-
sible, at least at this point, to get the board to approve a policy or opinion: Thats the reason
104
Id. at 7.
105
Id. at 45.
106
Roberto Danino, The Legal Aspects of the World Banks Work on Human Rights: Some Preliminary Thoughts,
in HUMAN RIGHTS AND DEVELOPMENT: TOWARDS MUTUAL REINFORCEMENT, supra note 5, at 509, 515.
107
Roberto Danino, Welcoming Remarks, Gender-Based Violence and Equitable Development: The Role of
the International Community, seminar at World Bank, Washington, D.C. (Oct. 24, 2005). Yet Danino also notes
that given the Banks mandate and role as a public institution, it would be more difcult for it to forgo a particular
investment because of political factors than it would be for a private company. Id. (based on authors notes).
108
The board conventionally operates by consensus, so any disagreements between countries over human rights
would be enough for the Bank not to approve the opinion.
that I didnt want to go to the Board. . . . Because if you go there, [some of the Board members
might try to] stop us. . . . And I knewfor a fact that we didnt have a consensus [in the Board],
so whats the point in hitting a brick wall? So I didnt go there.
109
The boards lack of endorsement of an opinion would amount to a public condemnation
of internal efforts to push a human rights agenda forward in the Bank. It could even result in
a backlash by executive directors, who might then become more vigilant in prohibiting any
human-rights-related initiative that they deemed contrary to the Banks mandate. Senior of-
cials felt that it was best to operate under the radar with regard to controversial issues like
human rights.
110
With little chance that the opinion would be approved by the board in the near future, its
legal status remained uncertain. Under the Articles of Agreement, the executive directors have
the authority to decide questions relating to the Articles interpretation.
111
Legal opinions by
the general counsel are intendedonlytooffer guidance tothe boardindecidingthese questions.
Yet there is no precedent on how to treat opinions unapproved by the board and written by
a general counsel who has since departed.
Employees who had read the opinion held widely differing views about its status. A senior
member of the Legal Department said it should be treated as an internal matter, part of an
iterative process. . . . Its considered as a source of advice for management, but not the
Board.
112
Some staff members questioned the process by which it was drafted and its legit-
imacy as an ofcial Bank opinion. They claimed that it merely represented Daninos personal
opinion and did not carry legal weight on the institutional level since the board had never
requested the general counsels advice on the issue.
113
According to a senior Bank lawyer, the
unclear status of the opinion put the Legal Department itself in a period of limbo.
114
Still, the opinion could have provoked discussion by the staff about the role of human rights
at the Bankanissue that hadbeentaboofor many years. The opinions exible interpretation
of the Articles of Agreement could have created an enabling environment for more explicit
work on human rights. The great majority of the staff, however, did not receive the opinion
on January 31, 2006, when it was released, or on any day thereafter. It was sent only to the
members of the Legal Department anda selectednumber of vice presidents andsenior ofcials.
Some of the lawyers then forwarded the opinion to their colleagues in other departments, but
many among the staff hadnot readit, let alone knewthat it existedevenmonths after its release.
The Legal Department made no effort to circulate the document to the rest of the staff and,
more remarkably, some lawyers obstinately refused to disclose its contents whenasked. Inquir-
ing employees were told that it was the exclusive domain of the Legal Department and could
109
Interview with Roberto Danino, former general counsel, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (May 26, 2006).
110
See infra text at notes 19299. I should briey note that the Legal Departments decision not to present the
opinion formally to the board did not mean that board members did not knowof its existence. A member country
representative supportive of a human rights agenda at the Bank told me that he was familiar with the opinion and
supported the under-the-radar strategy, since he was well aware of the unlikelihood of gaining the boards approval
of the opinion. Interview with a senior adviser to an executive director, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (May 11,
2006).
111
Articles of Agreement, supra note 67, Art. IX.
112
Interview with ofcial, Legal Department, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (May 25, 2006).
113
Interview with ofcial, Social Development Department, Environmentally and Socially Sustainable Devel-
opment Network, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (Feb. 1, 2006).
114
Interview with ofcial, Legal Department, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (Feb. 21, 2006).
not yet be sharedwithoutsiders, referring not only tothe press andNGOs, but alsotoanyone
inthe Bankoutside the department.
115
Nevertheless, NGOs were leakeda copy of the opinion,
which they subsequently posted on their Web sites.
116
Nondisclosure of legal opinions outside the Bank is a matter of precedent. They are sup-
posed to remain internal, although they have periodically been leaked externally. Under the
Banks disclosure policy, the general counsel may not release legal opinions publicly without
the boards approval.
117
The only prior example of such external release was when former gen-
eral counsel Shihatas legal opinions and memorandums were published in a book.
118
In this
case, Shihata had sought a special authorization fromthe Banks Executive Directors.
119
Yet
the Banks disclosure policy does not prohibit the dissemination of opinions to staff members
outside the Legal Department.
120
My research points to another underlying reason, in addition to the opinions questionable
legal status, for why the 2006 opinion was not circulated more widely across the Bank. Mem-
bers of the Legal Department didnot, or evenrefusedto, circulate the opinionbecause of inter-
nal conict within the department over value-laden issues like human rights. To understand
this conict, one must analyze the practices and status of lawyers and economists within the
bureaucracy, as well as the clash of expertise within the Banks organizational culture.
III. THE BANKS ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE
If legal constraints insufciently account for the marginality of human rights at the Bank,
one must look inside the organization to the Banks organizational culture to determine how
bureaucratic obstacles have shaped the adoption and diffusion of human rights norms. An
organizational culture is a persistent, patterned way of thinking about the central tasks of and
human relationships within an organization.
121
It encompasses a range of factors, including
the formal goals of the organization, its mission, the prior experiences and personal beliefs of
employees, the expectations of their peers, the array of interests in which their agency is
embedded, andthe impetus giventothe organizationby its founders.
122
Organizations donot
have homogeneous cultures, but multiple subcultures that may operate in conict. In the
World Bank, the subcultures are based on such factors as employees disciplinary backgrounds
and the regional unit in which they operate.
By analyzing the Banks culture as a political process of constructing and negotiating mean-
ings that are continuously contested, this study not only uncovers the formal characteristics of
the organization, including its management structure and operational policies.
123
It also ana-
lyzes the informal characteristics, such as power dynamics among the staff and the Banks
115
Personal communication with Bank ofcial (Feb. 1, 2006).
116
E.g., Oxfam International, at http://www.iwatchnet.org/?qen/node/335.
117
WORLD BANK, THE WORLD BANK POLICY ON DISCLOSURE OF INFORMATION, para. 75 (2002).
118
SHIHATA, supra note 91.
119
Id. at XLI.
120
WORLD BANK, supra note 117.
121
JAMES Q. WILSON, BUREAUCRACY: WHAT GOVERNMENT AGENCIES DO AND WHY THEY DO IT 91
(1989).
122
Id. at 27.
123
Susan Wright, Culture in Anthropology and Organization Studies, in ANTHROPOLOGY OF ORGANIZA-
TIONS 1, 17 (Susan Wright ed., 1994).
incentive system, which emphasizes lending targets rather than results on the ground. A brief
description of the explicit and implicit goals and incentives relevant to the adoption of human
rights follows.
Processes of NormSocialization
An organization has a sense of mission when a clearly dened direction and principal goals
lie behind its operations. The mission confers a feeling of special worth on the members, pro-
vides a basis for recruiting and socializing new members, and enables the administrators to
economize on the use of other incentives.
124
Astrong sense of mission can foster loyalty to the
organization and camaraderie among its staff, but also favor the dominant subculture and lead
it toresist newtasks that seemincompatible toit.
125
Suchnewtasks andprograms may be given
fewer resources or less prominence within the organization in comparison to those supported
by the dominant subculture.
The explicit missionof the Bankis poverty reduction, according toits Articles of Agreement.
Yet given the vagueness of this goal and its vulnerability to multiple interpretations, the Bank
has been accused of mission creep both inside and outside the organization. Mission creep
refers to the shifting of activities away from an organizations original mandate.
126
One could
distinguish between the Banks explicit mandate and multiple implicit mandates, which can
cover a range of poverty-reduction-related issues. For example, when the Banks management
has resistedissues like humanrights (particularly certaincivil andpolitical rights), it has dened
them as outside the Banks mandate and thus not suitable for inclusion in the organizations
work program. Withinthe institutionand inthe minds of employees themselves, the core mis-
sion of the Bank and the activities that can be considered consistent with it have continually
been debated.
Socialization conditions employees as to the unstated assumptions behind their work and
the issues that are taboo, to be neither discussed nor worked on. Socialization refers to the sys-
tematic means by which[organizations] bring newmembers intotheir culture.
127
It canoccur
through recruitment procedures, training, informal conversations with peers, and rituals that
validate the organizational culture. Normsocialization processes inculcate employees with the
generally accepted values and expected behavior in the organization.
One mechanism by which socialization occurs is through incentives (both pecuniary and
nonpecuniary), which tell people specically what is valued and comparatively more impor-
tant in the particular setting and how, therefore, to allocate attention and effort among com-
peting objectives.
128
The Banks incentive system could be summed up in this statement:
The culture of the Bank is getting a project to the Board. . . . You get your intellectual
brownie points fromyour peers inthe Bankby saying that I have takena 200milliondollar
124
WILSON, supra note 121, at 95.
125
Id. at 101.
126
Jessica Einhorn, The World Banks Mission Creep, FOREIGN AFF., Sept./Oct. 2001, at 22.
127
Richard Pascale, The Paradox of Corporate Culture: Reconciling Ourselves to Socialization, CAL. MGMT.
REV., Winter 1985, at 26, 27.
128
JEFFREY PFEFFER, NEW DIRECTIONS FOR ORGANIZATION THEORY: PROBLEMS AND PROSPECTS 111
(1997).
project to the Board in so many months, and so many years. Thats what gives you stand-
ing.
129
While this incentive is not explicitly stated in staff manuals, it becomes part of the common
knowledge of employees soon after they join the Bank.
Some of the problems with this incentive system were articulated by an employee:
Its very easy tomeasure money out the door but hardtoassess your contributiontoresults.
How do you know that it was your project that achieved [a particular result]? Also, man-
agers move [to different departments] and there are big lags in thingspeople think you
can change a country in two years, but you cant. You need to have a very sophisticated
system for assessing your contribution to development in your specic area. And thats
hard to do, and its hard to do it in the time period where they can hold you accountable
for that.
130
Since projects often take many years to yield results, promotion is not tied to favorable long-
term outcomes. Rather, it is based on the approval of projects and the size of those projects in
terms of money lent. Inaddition, nding a causal relationshipbetweena managers actions and
a projects long-termeffects is oftendifcult, since manyexternal factors (e.g., the political con-
ditions on the ground) also come into play. James Q. Wilson refers to bureaucracies like the
Bank as procedural organizations, where the way staff members go about their jobs is more
important thanwhether doing those jobs produces the desiredoutcomes.
131
That is, only out-
puts, rather than outcomes, can be observed in such organizations.
What are the indirect results of the Banks incentive system on policy compliance by
employees? To nd an answer in terms of human rights, I focused on the Banks safeguard pol-
icies, which are designed to avoid or mitigate any detrimental impacts of Bank activities and
ensure that operations are nancially, socially, andenvironmentally sound. While the Bankhas
not introduced a safeguard policy on human rights, many of the existing policies address
human-rights-related issues. They include cultural property, environmental assessment, for-
ests, indigenous peoples, involuntary resettlement, natural habitats, and the safety of dams.
132
Although employees are required to apply the policies in borrower countries, they do not con-
sistently do so in practice.
133
The Bank promotes its safeguard policies as indicative of its concern for environmental and
social goals, but its implicit incentive systemsuggests that these goals are not primary. In fact,
most employees perceive the policies as impediments to lending because they add constraints
to tasks and thereby reduce efciency and opportunities for promotion. Such policies may also
create a perverse incentive: for instance, staff members may avoid projects that would benet
indigenous peoples (by redesigning projects to be undertaken in areas lacking an indigenous
population) so that they would not be required to complete additional time-consuming and
129
Interview with ofcial, World Bank Institute, Washington, D.C. (Nov. 10, 2005).
130
Interview with ofcial, East Asia and the Pacic Region, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (Nov. 9, 2005).
131
132
See OPERATIONAL MANUAL, supra note 1, Table A1, OP 4.0 ( July 2005) (Environmental and Social Pol-
iciesPolicy Objectives and Operational Principles).
133
For an analysis of inconsistent application of the Banks safeguard policy on indigenous peoples, see Galit A.
Sarfaty, Note, The World Bank and the Internalization of Indigenous Rights Norms, 114 YALE L.J. 1791 (2005).
costly tasks under the Banks Indigenous Peoples Policy.
134
These tasks include the preparation
of an indigenous peoples plan and the scheduling of public consultations.
135
Because task
teams (the operational groups that prepare and supervise projects) functiononlimited budgets
and a restricted timetable, they have an incentive to minimize the number of policies that they
must comply with.
136
Policies may serve more as maximum ceilings than as minimum stan-
dards.
Project managers have discretion regarding how to apply safeguard policies and balance
compliance with other goals. Some managers who are sympathetic to human rights and view
them as part of the Banks mandate are more careful in applying the policies to their projects.
Yet they still face pragmatic dilemmas when trying to balance competing principles. One
employee notedthat [i]nthe day-to-day operations, very oftenprinciples may contradict each
other. For example, we want [projects] to be participatory and for people to have a say and be
involved, but at the same time we want projects to go very fast.
137
Employees also face ethical
dilemmas in their work. They may be internally divided over howto balance their support for
human-rights-related concerns with their allegiance to the implicit Bank goal of quickly
approving and carrying out projects with the least interference and complications. One lawyer
that I spoke with described a dilemma he faced in an African country with one of the largest
AIDS problems in the world but also one of the most repressive regimes.
138
Should the Bank
stop lending to the country because it unfairly locked up dissidents, even if it meant closing
down its AIDS project, which was signicantly helping its poor population? Employees have
not been given guidance on balancing competing priorities like these and are not encouraged
to discuss ethical issues.
139
The Knowledge Bank
Within the institution, knowledge is considered the currency of value, and having a doc-
torate is more the normthan the exception. The Banks collection of knowledge, which it has
gathered over many years of experience advising developing countries, is its comparative
advantage over commercial banks andprivate investors, andgives it authority over other devel-
opment agencies.
140
Its research departments are unparalleled in the eld of development
few, if any, universities have the depth and breadth of practical experience that is housed in the
Bank. Inthe mid-1990s, then-president Wolfensohnbegantodene it as a knowledge bank,
134
Interview with ofcial, Environment Department, Latin America and the Caribbean Region, World Bank,
Washington, D.C. (Nov. 15, 2005).
135
See OPERATIONAL MANUAL, supra note 1, OP 4.10, paras. 6, 10.
136
Interview with ofcial, Environment Department, Latin America and the Caribbean Region, World Bank,
Washington, D.C. (Dec. 27, 2005).
137
Interview with ofcial, supra note 129.
138
Interview with ofcial, Legal Department, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (Mar. 9, 2006).
139
Interview with ofcial, Operations Evaluation Department, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (Nov. 16,
2005).
140
There are many critics of the Banks research, including those who feel that the Bank is too tied to its own
paradigms. An independent evaluation of the Banks research by top academic economists criticized it for being
used to proselytize on behalf of Bank policy, often without taking a balanced view of the evidence, and without
expressing appropriate skepticism. Abhijit Banerjee et al., An Evaluation of World Bank Research, 19982005,
at 6 (Sept. 24, 2006), available at the Banks Web site, http://www.worldbank.org/.
focused not only on lending money but also on the production and transmission of develop-
ment-oriented ideas, analysis, and advice to client countries.
141
By doing so, [e]xisting prod-
ucts and services [were] redened as knowledge assets, or augmented with knowledge of how
they are used.
142
The accumulationanddisseminationof knowledge ondevelopment became
a complementary goal to the promotion of economic growth.
143
In-house research, at least in
theory, could be integrated into the Banks everyday operations and made available to policy-
makers in client countries; ideas could be put into practice.
144
How does knowledge circulate within the Bank and under what conditions is it produced?
The Banks management structure signicantly shapes the processes of knowledge production
and circulation. The Bank is divided into two major groups: the operations units and the net-
work units. The operations units are responsible for carrying out development projects on the
ground and maintaining relations with member countries. They are divided into six geo-
graphic regional units, whose cultures are quite distinct. The operations units are further sub-
dividedinto ve thematic areas, including sustainable development, humandevelopment, and
infrastructure.
145
The network units constitute the research armof the Bank and supply advi-
sory services to the operations staff in the form of reports and referrals to experts. These units
cover the same thematic topics as the operations units but are not subdivided geographically.
Since 1997, the Bank has operated under a matrix organizational structure, with overlap-
ping geographic and functional units and parallel reporting relationships that are intended to
promote knowledge management. Matrix structures, which became fashionable in the late
1970s and early 1980s, feature a diffusion of responsibility along multiple lines of com-
mand.
146
For instance, an employee in operations may be concurrently responsible to bosses
in three units: a country management unit (based in the eld), at least one network or thematic
research unit in the headquarters (e.g., poverty, the public sector, the environment, or infra-
structure), and a sector management unit. The sector management unit is where the employee
sits in the headquarters, and corresponds to a particular geographic region and thematic area
(e.g., Latin American sustainable development or African health and education). It is also
responsible for the operations employees performance appraisal and promotion (although it
does receive comments from the other units).
When the Bank holds a staff orientation training session, it devotes a considerable amount
of time to the goals, functions, and benets of the matrix environment.
147
One of the
primary objectives of the matrix is to facilitate knowledge seeking and sharing through greater
involvement of the units in collaboration and teamwork. Knowledge sharing can enhance
141
See James Wolfensohn, Annual Meetings Address (Oct. 1, 1996), available at the Banks Web site, supra
note 140.
142
THOMAS H. DAVENPORT & LAURENCE PRUSAK, WORKING KNOWLEDGE: HOW ORGANIZATIONS
MANAGE WHAT THEY KNOW at x (paperback 2000) (1998).
143
See Joseph E. Stiglitz, The World Bank at the Millennium, 109 ECON. J. F577, F590 (1999).
144
See Christopher Gilbert et al., Positioning the World Bank, 109 ECON. J. F598, F610 (1999).
145
As of July 1, 2006, the Bank mergedsome of the thematic areas, resulting ina reductionof network units from
seven to ve. The current network units are Financial and Private Sector Development, Human Development,
Operations Policy and Country Services, Poverty Reduction and Economic Management, and Sustainable Devel-
opment.
146
Christopher A. Bartlett &Sumantra Ghoshal, Matrix Management: Not a Structure, a Frame of Mind, HARV.
BUS. REV., JulyAug. 1990, at 138, 139.
147
My account is based on a 2004 new staff orientation slide presentation, The Matrix Environment and the
World Bank.
the quality of the Banks assistance. For example, operations employees are expected to main-
tain strong afliations with multiple thematic groups, which provide cross-country compar-
isons andbest-practice examples ona particular issue like developinga transport sector strategy.
An advantage of the matrix structure is that [i]ts multiple information channels allow[] the
organization to capture and analyze external complexity.
148
Such complexity includes inter-
dependent activities and the need to respond quickly and exibly to changing environments.
Inaddition, intheory, integrating geographical and functional groups canpromote innovative
ideas and cooperation among the staff.
In practice, however, the matrix systemhas grown unpopular among many employees, who
question whether it achieves its stated objectives. Material froma staff orientation training ses-
sion boasts that the matrix structure enables the staff to balance potentially conicting objec-
tives. This seems to be a grave problem, as employees nd it difcult and confusing to report
to multiple bosses, particularly when the bosses assign conicting tasks to them. Management
scholars have reiterated this criticism. They have observed that the proliferation of channels
[in a matrix] create[s] informational logjams . . . ; and overlapping responsibilities produce[ ]
turf battles and a loss of accountability.
149
The training session material itself admits to some
of the challenges of the matrixfor example, ambiguous roles and reporting relationships,
power struggles, high levels of staff stress, and decision-making problems.
Moreover, in the case of the Bank, the matrix structure does not necessarily facilitate coop-
erationby the staff inthe interest of promotinginnovation. Asenior ofcial observedthat while
the matrix is supposed to create a marketplace of ideas competing for inuence, he was not
really sure that it functions as a perfect market, that the best ideas are winning. He lamented
the loss of resources being spent onrunning that system.
150
Most of the newideas come from
people in the network, since those in operations are too busy designing and running projects.
Despite the matrixs objective of collaboration by network and operations units, there is an
underlying tensionbetweenthem. Operations employees oftencomplainthat those inthe net-
work do not understand the day-to-day responsibilities of managing projects and dealing with
country governments, so that their research is not always relevant to operational work.
151
The network, which represents a community of professionals united by a thematic work
program, serves as the source of new knowledge, although country knowledge gathered by
operations staff is alsohighly valued. The networks centrality inthe Banks management struc-
ture indicates the importance of experts in this knowledge-based organization. Not surpris-
ingly, the high priority of expert knowledge in the Banks work program and management
structure makes it an important factor in determining status among employees.
A Clash of Expertise
Staff behavior is shaped by various factors, including employees prior experience, political
ideology, personality characteristics, andprofessional or disciplinary background.
152
I focus on
this last factor because my interviews andobservations point to it as one of the strongest sources
148
Bartlett & Ghoshal, supra note 146, at 139.
149
Id.
150
Interview with ofcial, Legal Department, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (Dec. 8, 2005).
151
152
of identication among the staff, as well as a basis for sharp internal division. Having under-
gone specialized formal education, employees derive much of their working knowledge and
skills from this professional background and are strongly inuenced by professional norms.
This patternespecially applies toanorganizationlike the Bank, where employees are givencon-
siderable discretion under operational rules to pursue often vaguely dened goals. Further-
more, many employees perceive their disciplinary background as a key contributing factor to
determining their status and opportunities for career advancement within the organization.
Composed of multiple, often competing groups of professionals, the Banks organizational
culture is anepistemic community, a networkof professionals withrecognizedexpertise and
competence in a particular domain and an authoritative claim to policy-relevant knowledge
within that domain or issue-area.
153
Employees come fromabout 160 different countries and
include economists, political scientists, lawyers, sociologists, anthropologists, environmental-
ists, nancial analysts, and engineers, among others. The number of social scientists who are
not economists grewsteadily fromabout a dozen in the 1970s and early 1980s, to over 200 in
1998, and to as many as 446 in 2002.
154
At the same time, the number of engineers, once an
inuential expert groupat the Bank, has decreased. Thus, the dominance of staff members with
particular expertise has shifted over time.
Professional groups may exhibit competing preferences over goals for the organization,
including visions for what development means andhowit canbe achieved. They speak distinct
languages arising from their disciplinary training, which may impede understanding and col-
laboration. In an analysis of policy debates at the Bank, a few employees observed: In DEC
[the development economics group], and among country economists and country managers,
talk revolves around quantication, statistical signicance, and formal models. Among oper-
ational staff, the grammar is differentit revolves around usability and, among many of the
social scientists, around social and political change.
155
Power relations between professional
communities are apparent in turf wars, where departments try to assert their authority and
inuence within the larger organization. Experts struggle over who has authority and jurisdic-
tional control over specic issues, such as human rights. One of the sharpest divisions is
between economists and those who are not economists, particularly lawyers. Within the Bank,
forms of expert knowledge are valued differently, and economic knowledge ranks the highest.
The prestige of economists and the dominance of economics. The dominant subculture within
the organization consists of economists because their expertise is considered the most valuable
to the Banks core work of promoting poverty reduction and economic growth. They have
inuence way beyond their numbers. Economists ll the majority of senior management posi-
tions (although they do not make up the majority of the staff ), and their way of thinking pre-
vails within the institution, including how they dene development success. Moreover, they
153
Peter M. Haas, Introduction: Epistemic Communities and International Policy Coordination, 46 INTL ORG.
1, 3 (1992); see also KARINKNORR-CETINA, EPISTEMICCULTURES: HOW THE SCIENCES MAKE KNOWLEDGE
(1999).
154
GLORIA DAVIS, A HISTORY OF THE SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT NETWORK IN THE WORLD BANK, 1973
2002, at 18 (World Bank Paper No. 56, Mar. 2004); WORLD BANK, AN OED REVIEW OF SOCIAL DEVELOP-
MENT IN BANK ACTIVITIES 8 (Feb. 2004). The 2002 estimate takes into account both staff and short-term con-
sultants. It includes 175 social development specialists, 22 gender specialists, and 249 additional Bank staff
members who hold graduate degrees in the noneconomic social sciences.
155
Anthony Bebbington et al., Exploring Social Capital Debates at the World Bank, J. DEV. STUD., June 2004,
at 33, 44.
generally holdthe prestigious country director positions, whichbear responsibility for dialogue
with country ministers and budget allocation to the sectoral units at the headquarters. Impor-
tantly, however, the Bank employs economists of different persuasions, including neoclassical
and institutionalist, who also contend for authority.
Economists have their own prestigious research group, the development economics group,
which hires top economists and recent doctorate holders, mostly from U.S. and British uni-
versities. No effort is made to recruit top members of other professions comparable to the
recruitment of economists into DEC, and no serious career track like the one for economists
exists for other professionals.
156
DEC economists produce high-quality academic papers that
inuence the Banks staff, public policymakers in member countries, and the academic com-
munity. Since employees in operations rarely have enough time to write academic papers, and
those in the network are often not afforded an opportunity to research topics of their own
choosing, the DECserves as an important platformfor transmitting newideas across the insti-
tution.
157
The dominance of a single profession may be harmful for the Bank, as one senior economist
acknowledged:
In my view, the limitation of the Bank up to this point is that weve been wedded to one
discipline: economics. So fashions and trends and fads in that discipline have affected the
fashions and trends and fads of economic development at the Bank. So why shouldnt the
fads and fashions of anthropology or political science affect it?
158
Experts in other disciplines often feel obliged to translate their writing and speech into econ-
omists language and to quantify their observations to gainlegitimacy for their ideas. Although
they lack the theoretical training, they learn a craft version of the economics knowledge sys-
tem.
159
What distinguishes the economics professional fromthe legal one, for example, is that
one can claim to be an economist without advanced training or licensing, while one cannot
claim to be a lawyer without passing the bar exam.
160
Staff members with other backgrounds
may evencall themselves economists to gainstatus: I met a public sector specialist witha public
policy background who chose the title of political economist for this reason. This form of
workplace assimilation has discouraged informed debate between different disciplinary per-
spectives and has created a sense of inferiority among some who are not economists.
161
The status of lawyers and the Legal Department. Lawyers do not typically become intellectual
leaders among the staff or key players in policymaking and agenda setting, with the occasional
exception of general counsels. The great majority of lawyers at the Bank serve in the Legal
Department, which is dominated by transactional specialists who work on loan agreements
156
One exception is the Young Professionals Program, which annually recruits twenty to forty talented young
people from a variety of professional backgrounds, including economics.
157
On the rare occasions that operations staff do have time to write, their audience is usually development prac-
titioners rather than academics.
158
159
ANDREW ABBOTT, THE SYSTEM OF PROFESSIONS: AN ESSAY ON THE DIVISION OF EXPERT LABOR 65
(1988).
160
Marion Fourcade, The Construction of a Global Profession: The Transnationalization of Economics, 112 AM. J.
SOC. 145, 151 (2006).
161
andadvise the staff onoperational policies andlaw-relatedissues.
162
Aside froma small number
in operations who work on legal and judicial reform and other public sector projects, lawyers
typically do not serve as project team leaders and their participation in projects is usually lim-
ited to technical legal tasks. Unlike economists, lawyers are not encouraged to spend their time
writing academic papers. Although the Legal Department has organized seminars designed to
foster intellectual dialogue on legal topics (for example, a two-day legal forum in December
2005 and a seminar series with academic guests), lawyers are mainly expected to be skilled in
practitioner-based knowledge.
163
The reputation of the Banks Legal Department has historically stood at a higher level and
has shifted over time, often in line with the strength of leadership by the general counsel.
164
The appointment and dismissal of the general counsel is the responsibility of the Banks pres-
ident.
165
The role of the general counsel may vary according to the organization, the time
period, and even the personalities involved.
166
When the Banks general counsel has played
an inuential role in the institution, lawyers in the Legal Department have been given an
opportunity to go beyond the traditional duties listed above and at times have served as policy-
makers, innovators, andinstitutionbuilders.
167
For example, during Shihatas tenure the Legal
Department played a key role in designing the Inspection Panel
168
and launching both the
Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency and the Global Environment Facility.
169
In addi-
tion, Shihatas legal opinions on governance and the rule of law paved the way for the intro-
ductionof legal andjudicial reformprojects ontothe Banks agenda.
170
Yet the general counsels
after Shihata, as well as the Legal Departments that they supervised, have been relegated to a
162
See JosephJ. Norton, International Financial Institutions andthe Movement TowardGreater Accountability and
Transparency: The Case of Legal Reform Programmes and the Problem of Evaluation, 35 INTL LAW. 1443, 1457
(2001).
163
In 2004 thengeneral counsel Danino tried to raise the prestige of the Legal Department and inspire a new
generation of lawyers to join the Bank. To that end, he established the Legal Associates Program, which recruits
talented young lawyers from around the world for a two-year stint in the department and possible permanent
employment thereafter.
164
The shifting status of the Banks Legal Department is not unusual among international organizations. For
instance, the Legal Department of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) played an inuential role in the insti-
tutionunder General Counsel JosephGoldfrom1960to1979. Following Golds retirement, however, the position
of General Counsel and Director of the Legal Department was downgraded to just Director of the Legal Depart-
ment, which reected a denigration of lawwithin the IMF. Legal considerations played a less signicant role in
IMF decision making after Golds tenure, although they returned to prominence in the late 1980s when the title
of General Counsel was again added to the Director of the Legal Department position. The changing title of
the head of the Legal Department indicates the shifting status of lawyers within the organization. Richard W.
Edwards Jr., The Role of the General Counsel of an International Financial Institution, 17 KAN. J.L. & PUB. POLY
254, 27071 (2008).
165
The Banks Articles of Agreement state: Subject to the general control of the Executive Directors, [the pres-
ident] shall be responsible for the organization, appointment and dismissal of the ofcers and staff. Articles of
Agreement, supra note 67, Art. V, 5.
166
William E. Holder, The International Monetary Fund: A Legal Perspective, 91 ASIL PROC. 201, 207 (1997).
Former general counsel Shihata further notes that [t]he role of the [general counsel], and that of Bank lawyers gen-
erally, has evolved with the evolution of the role of the Bank itself. Ibrahim F. I. Shihata, Role of the World Banks
General Counsel, id. at 214, 221.
167
Edwards, supra note 164, at 257.
168
Id. at 261.
169
Shihata, supra note 166, at 221.
170
Roundtable of International Financial Institutions General Counsels, 91 ASILPROC. 199, 200 (1997) (remarks
by Andres Rigo).
weaker position in Bank policymaking and institution building. Moreover, since Shihatas
departure, there has been a high turnover of general counsels, all of whomhave served less than
ve years as compared with Shihatas fteen.
The Legal Departments increasingly weak leadership in Bank decision making following
the Shihata period made it difcult for lawyers to assert substantial inuence on the issue of
human rights. Moreover, because only lawyers from the Legal Department have full access to
legal opinions and internal memos, as well as the Banks lawlibrary, they have engaged in lim-
itedopendialogue withthe rest of the staff over legal opinions like the 2006opiniononhuman
rights.
171
This has not always been the case. Legal opinions used to be accessible to all of the
Banks staff, but the practice ended when lawyers were feeling challenged by nonlegal ofcials
in operations, who had criticized some of their legal interpretations.
172
Finally, as with any department or organization, internal conict can be found in the Legal
Department. Some lawyers favor a conservative, formalistic interpretationof legal issues, while
others adhere to a progressive one. For example, the 2006 legal opinion on human rights did
not represent a uniedviewwithinthe department onthe Articles of Agreement. It was drafted
by a small group of lawyers led by Danino and was circulated within the department for com-
ment. While no strong opposition was voiced, some lawyers preferred a more cautious
approach and later questioned its status as an ofcial legal opinion.
Even after the opinion was released, resistance surfaced from within the department to
openly discussing and publicizing it. An informal group of lawyers approached one of their
superiors about ways to foster open dialogue inside the department on the opinions practical
implications. The lawyers considered this an opportune time to spark an internal conversation
about the role of human rights, which they considered long overdue. Yet they knew that pro-
posing a Bank-wide discussionat that moment wouldhave beentooradical, since it might have
appeared to challenge the authority of the Legal Department. Instead, they suggested a safer
alternative: a brown-bag lunch that would be restricted to members of the department.
(Brown-bag lunches are low-key events, as opposed to daylong seminars or conferences.)
Nonetheless, the senior ofcial inquestionrejectedsuchanevent because he viewedthe subject
as too controversial.
173
This resistance demonstrates a cautious attitude among members of
the department and an unwillingness by some lawyers to promote discussion of new ideas.
Thus, internal conict inhibited the Legal Department from presenting a united position on
human rights and from leading the staff in an open discussion in light of the recent opinion.
IV. FRAMING HUMANRIGHTS NORMS TOADAPT TO THE BANKS CULTURE
How does the clash of expertise within the Banks organizational culture play out over par-
ticular issues like human rights? More generally, how does it shape efforts at organizational
change? In part II, I demonstrated that the failure of internal attempts to advance a human
171
Even lawyers who work in units outside the Legal Department have limited access. If a Bank employee who
is not in the Legal Department entered its intranet Web site, she would have access to all documents except the
section on legal opinions. If she tried to access one, she would immediately be prompted to provide a password,
which is given only to members of the department.
172
Interview with ofcial, Legal Department, World Bank, Washington, D.C. ( July 26, 2006).
173
Personal communication with Bank ofcial (Feb. 2, 2006).
rights agenda at the Bank stemmedlargely frominstitutional obstacles, including internal con-
ict over how to interpret and implement human rights norms. In this part, I show how dif-
ferent professional subcultures within the organization correspond to distinct interpretive
frames on human rights.
174
Interpretive gaps between frames are critical obstacles to achieving
norminternalizationinbureaucracies. Inthe context of the Bank, interpretive gaps refer to dif-
ferences between employees interpretations of human rights, including how the employees
justify the relevance of human rights to the Banks mission and conceptualize their practical
role in the Banks operations.
Of course, interpretive gaps are only one obstacle to achieving norminternalization. Other
important factors include an appropriate staff incentive system to motivate desired behavior,
leadership by senior and middle management, and the investment of sufcient resources to
institute policy changes effectively. Particularly for the Bank, however, the clashbetweeninter-
pretive frames is an underemphasized factor that in my viewhas hindered the development of
a human rights consciousness among the staff.
Competing Interpretive Frames
The distinct interpretive frames heldby professional subcultures withinthe Bankshape their
understanding of issues and their preferred strategies for implementation.
175
Members of sub-
cultures routinely take action on the basis of collective understandings unique to the
group.
176
Their normative commitments andworldviews oftenderive fromtheir professional
background, such as law or economics.
The two main interpretive rationales for understanding the value of human rights for the
Bank and development in general are the intrinsic and instrumental frames. Proponents of the
intrinsic frame viewhuman rights as universal and indivisible, and they value their protection
as an end in itself. In contrast, proponents of the instrumental frame follow a functionalist
rationale for promoting human rights, as a means to an end. They measure the value of hu-
manrights according to whether they enhance development effectiveness andmake goodbusi-
ness sense. The two interpretive frames roughly correspond to distinct disciplinary ways
of thinking.
177
There are two subgroups within the intrinsic framethe rst emphasizes the legal dimen-
sion of human rights, while the second emphasizes their moral dimension. The rst subgroup
denes human rights as legal obligations that derive their legitimacy from the international
humanrights regime and, inparticular, the Universal Declarationof HumanRights.
178
Mem-
bers of this subgroupinclude, not surprisingly, many Bank lawyers, as well as civil society advo-
cates. They viewrights as implying corresponding legal duties for state governments. The Bank
174
See Barnett & Finnemore, Politics, Power, supra note 17, at 719.
175
See Jennifer A. Howard-Grenville, Inside the Black Box: HowOrganizational Culture and Subcultures Inform
Interpretations and Actions on Environmental Issues, 19 ORG. & ENVT 46, 51 (2006).
176
JohnVanMaanen&StephenR. Barley, Cultural Organization: Fragments of a Theory, inORGANIZATIONAL
CULTURE 31, 38 (Peter J. Frost et al. eds., 1985).
177
Adherents of each interpretive frame are not restricted to professionals of that discipline. For instance, while
most lawyers adhere to the intrinsic frame andmost economists adhere to the instrumental frame, there are certainly
exceptions. But for the sake of simplicity, I present a general typology. Moreover, in my comparison of staff inter-
pretations, I exclude employees that completely oppose the integration of human rights into the Banks work.
178
Universal Declaration of Human Rights, GARes. 217A, UNGAOR, 3d Sess., Resolutions, at 71, UNDoc.
A/810 (1948).
lawyers who are committed to this interpretation have expressed grave concerns about any
attempt to dilute the basic legal tenets of human rights and to water down the corresponding
obligations.
179
They insist that it is essential . . . that efforts tointegrate humanrights indevel-
opment practice, not compromise those key characteristics [of legal obligations and duties] in
the process, and risk the impoverishment of rights discourse and the undermining of core val-
ues and objectives that human rights were conceived to realize.
180
The second subgroup of the intrinsic frame denes rights as primarily ethical principles or
moral imperatives, founded on a conception of fundamental human dignity and a framework
of common values. They often advocate for a principles-based approach that focuses on ethics
and social policy goals that are not necessarily attached to legal standards. Members of this sub-
group include many noneconomist social scientists, such as anthropologists and sociologists.
One manifestation of this interpretive frame is the Banks 1999 report Principles and Good
Practice in Social Policy, primarily drafted by employees in the Social Development Depart-
ment.
181
Adherents of the instrumental frame value human rights as a means of achieving develop-
mental objectives like economic growth. Giventheir pragmatic orientation, proponents of this
approach often mention trade-offs that may have to be made when implementing human
rights, especially in countries with limited resources. They set highest priority on the fulll-
ment of rights that achieve poverty reductionandeconomic growth. Because many economists
typically adhere to this interpretive frame, it carries a lot of weight in the institution.
Evaluating the Banks Recent Efforts
Following General Counsel Daninos resignation in January 2006, internal human rights
advocates were left with a potentially inuential legal opinion but no one to champion it.
Although members of the Legal Department disagreed on its status, hesitated to circulate it
throughout the rest of the Bank, and were reluctant in many cases to discuss it openly even
within the department, a fewof their number continued their efforts to push the human rights
agenda forward.
In late 2005 and 2006, an informal group of lawyers (many of whom would help draft the
2006 legal opinion) had already begun to organize activities toward furthering the human
rights agenda and taking an explicit approach to human rights. A prominent member of the
group was a senior lawyer fromthe Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs who was hired in Octo-
ber 2005 by the Legal Department. His appointment was funded by the Nordic countries,
which have demonstrated strong support for a human rights agenda.
182
On October 20, 2005,
179
Interviews with ofcials, Legal Department, World Bank, Washington, D.C. ( Jan. 4, 2006, Jan. 17, 2006).
180
Klaus Decker et al., Human Rights and Equitable Development: Ideals, Issues and Implications 49 (2005)
(background paper for WORLD BANK, WORLD DEVELOPMENT REPORT 2006).
181
WORLD BANK, PRINCIPLES AND GOOD PRACTICE IN SOCIAL POLICY: ISSUES AND AREAS FOR PUBLIC
ACTION (Apr. 1999).
182
Then-president Wolfensohn had approached the Nordic countries in 2004 and asked for their assistance in
advancing a human rights agenda at the Bank. It took about two years to make the arrangements to bring in the
senior lawyer from the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is not uncommon for countries to fund the appoint-
ment of a Bank staff member to pursue a particular policy agenda.
the Nordic countries presented a working paper to then-president Paul Wolfowitz en-
titled The World Bank and Human Rights.
183
The paper discussed why and how the
human rights perspective should be enhanced in the World Banks policies and operations
with a view to reinforcing its development and poverty eradication mission.
184
It opened
a dialogue on human rights with Wolfowitz and became part of a new Nordic-and-Baltic-
sponsored initiative.
As its rst order of business, the initiative proposed creating the Justice and Human Rights
Trust Fund, whose purpose was [t]o provide effective support . . . to include human rights
considerations in the analytical and operational activities of the World Bank Group.
185
Its
activities were toinclude empirical research, country case studies, andoutreachacross the Bank
through human rights education and the training of operations staff. The trust fund would be
managed by the Legal Vice-Presidency, in cooperation with representatives from other Bank
units, and would have a minimum life span of ve years.
Internal politics and a collapse in leadership after the resignation of Wolfowitz prevented
the launching of the Justice and Human Rights Trust Fund until 2009, when it was renamed
the Nordic Trust Fund under the management of the Banks Operations Policy and Country
Services network.
186
The deliberations that I witnessed in 2006 on the objectives and activities
of the trust fund suggest possible ways to operationalize human rights norms at the Bank.
While designing the trust funds plan of action, the lawyers faced resistance and had to revise
their approach to adapt it to the Banks organizational culture. Their recent efforts address (or,
at times, sidestep) several institutional obstacles that had plagued prior efforts to introduce
humanrights. These include lack of a pragmatic orientation, failure to conduct outreachto the
staff in headquarters and the country ofces, lack of resources, and fear by the Board of Exec-
utive Directors and senior management that adopting human rights was too controversial and
beyond the Banks mandate.
Framing human rights for economists. The lawyers who helped draft the 2006 legal opinion
recognizedthe interpretive gapbetweentheir visionof humanrights andthat of the economists
whodominatedthe Bank. They spoke withemployees inthe headquarters andeldofces who
questioned the added value of a human rights approach when compared to existing best prac-
tices, which already incorporated some human rights principles. Throughout these discus-
sions, they encountered a need for more empirical work to demonstrate the causal links
between human rights and economic development. Some employees complained of a lack of
clarity over what is meant by a rights-based approach to development. Would it simply be a
rhetorical repackaging of existing practice? Many staff members also perceived human rights
norms as overly rigid, particularly whendenedwithrespect tointernational legal instruments,
leaving little room for the trade-offs that are often necessary in development practice.
As the lawyers considered howto design the newtrust fund, they were torn over whether an
instrumental approach would dilute the intrinsic meaning of human rights. They realized that
they needed a dual approach that would adhere to both a legal interpretation and the instru-
mental frame. Yet they worried about the risk of taking an overly technical approach to rights.
183
The World Bank and Human RightsNordic-Baltic Working Paper (rev. Oct. 20, 2005).
184
Id.
185
Justice and Human Rights Trust Fund ( JHRTF), Concept Note 1 ( July 12, 2006).
186
See World Bank, The Nordic Trust Fund, at http://go.worldbank.org/PKPTI6FU40.
Despite their misgivings, the lawyers decided to emphasize how human rights enhance devel-
opment effectiveness and make good business sense. I call this strategy economizing human
rights.
187
It is an effort to demystify the concept of human rights and build a constituency
among the staff while promoting anempirical approachthat uses indicators to measure human
rights performance.
According to a senior Bank economist, We will not make inroads in the Bank if [human
rights] language is not made into economic language . . . .
188
This statement suggests the
importance of translating human rights into the dominant discourse of economics. The deci-
sion to economize human rights shows that the lawyers recognized that past attempts to intro-
duce the agenda failed in part because they neglected to build a constituency at the Bank. The
following statement by another Bank economist emphasizes the value of empirical evidence in
furthering agendas within the institution like dealing with corruption in borrower countries:
I think that things really happen in the Bank when an economic case could be made for
them. You put it in economic language. This is howcorruption came in. It sort of became
acceptable internally to talk about corruptionwhenpeople could showwith cross-country
regressions that its related to lower growth. . . . People needed this to say that Okay. Its
all right for us to work on this. So one obstacle would be to . . . articulate rights issues in
the way that economists could understand.
189
As part of an attempt to speak to economists, the lawyers adopted a largely instrumental
approach to rights in the proposed Justice and Human Rights Trust Fund.
One of the trust funds main objectives was to serve as a hub for bolstering an emerging
community of practice aroundhumanrights inthe Bank.
190
Inpreparationfor the trust fund,
the Norwegian government nanced a workshop on May 1516, 2006. The topic was devel-
oping indicators for measuring justice so as to evaluate the performance of a countrys justice
sector.
191
But the workshop also discussed the Legal Departments project on human rights
indicators, whichhadbegunin2005andwas developedincollaborationwiththe DanishInsti-
tute for Human Rights. As part of this empirical focus, the lawyers proposed pilot projects in
borrower countries. Pilot projects would allow for an empirical study of the effects of using a
human rights approach in Bank projects, as compared with existing practices.
Operating under the radar: pursuing pilot projects rather than a policy. As a Bank ofcial
explained:
The trouble with the Bank is that getting anything adopted as an institutional position or
strategy is really tough because . . . theres been a shift towards decentralizing things. So
getting to a policy is almost the last step after things have already percolated [through the
institution]. Its almost like practice precedes policy in this place. . . . Back in the 1990s,
187
See BronwenMorgan, The Economisation of Politics: Metaregulation as a Formof Nonjudicial Legality, 12 SOC.
& LEGAL STUD. 489 (2003).
188
Daniel Kaufmann, Statement, in Conference on the Establishment of a Justice and Human Rights Trust
Fund ( JHRTF) in the World Bank, Proceedings 11 (Copenhagen, June 2627, 2006) [hereinafter JHRTF Con-
ference] (on le with author).
189
Interview with ofcial, Development Research Group, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (Mar. 14, 2006).
190
World Bank Legal Department, The Proposed Nordic Trust Fund & Emerging Human Rights Practice in
the Bank (Mar. 2006) (emphasis omitted).
191
There were about thirty participants in the workshop, including representatives from the World Bank, of-
cials in the Nordic and Baltic Foreign Ministries, and academic experts in human rights from four continents.
it was the opposite waythat if you wanted to get something done, you would push the
policy rst, and then practice would follow. For example, the safeguard policies. Those
were key to getting people to change behavior. Its kind of the opposite now. [Changes in]
behavior tend to happen through pilot projects.
192
After years of internal and external advocacy for an institutional policy on human rights,
internal advocates began moving toward a country-level approach. The lawyers who designed
the trust fund decided that the Banks country staff should take the lead on any human rights
initiative, with support from the donor community. They considered regional and national
ownership critical to a successful human rights agenda. They advanced as one reason for this
tactic the signicant decision-making role that country directors played at the Bank, much
more so than vice presidents, . . . and certainly much more so than sector directors or sector
managers. [They are the ones] who are really making the decisions in terms of resource allo-
cation, and are leading the dialogue with the country.
193
One of the trust funds preparatory workshops focused on country-level initiatives, includ-
ing pilot projects, the integration of human rights principles into national development strat-
egies, and the promotion of human rights dialogues with national authorities.
194
Another
project proposedthat humanrights be incorporatedintothe poverty-reductionstrategy papers
of selectedgovernmentsthose that requestedassistance inintegrating humanrights concerns
intotheir development strategies. The Bankwouldassist the governments intranslating inter-
nationally agreed human rights standards into operational policy actions, thereby prioritizing
support for those services that both contribute to economic and social development and con-
stitute human rights obligations on the state.
195
The team of lawyers behind the recent
approachmade a strategic decisiontofocus onpilot projects rather thantoadvocate for a stand-
alone operational policy. One reason for this decision was the previously discussed staff incen-
tive system, in which internal promotions are based on lending targets rather than compliance
with safeguard policies. Staff members that I interviewed expressed a general resentment of the
existing policies:
People [have been] feeling that the compliance police are after them, and that the proce-
dures are rigid and bureaucratic. . . . And there [is] a lot of weariness from the experience
of the safeguards about trying to make things mandatory because itll be seen as a burden.
So the idea is trying to do this through good practice examples . . . .
196
Another reason was the lawyers recognition that the sharp division of the board over human
rights would prevent them from getting it to approve a new policy. As a result, they chose to
pursue an incremental strategy of working under the boards radar screen.
Anincremental, under-the-radar strategy stands incontrast to one of mainstreaming, which
entails explicit management support for the incorporation of an issue into existing programs.
192
193
Interviewwith ofcial, Operations Evaluation Department, World Bank, Washington, D.C. (Apr. 5, 2006).
194
StockholmSeminar on Human Rights Dialogues and Rights Principles in Development Cooperation at the
Country-Level, Summary of Discussions ( June 1920, 2006) (on le with author).
195
Joseph K. Ingram [thenWorld Bank special representative to the United Nations and the World Trade
Organization], Statement, First Session of the Human Rights Council in Geneva, Switzerland ( June 21, 2006) (on
le with author).
196
Interview with ofcial, Social Development Department, Latin America and the Caribbean Region, World
Bank, Washington, D.C. (Mar. 15, 2006).
Prior mainstreaming occurred at the Bank when environmental concerns were incorporated
into its programming through adoption of an operational policy on environmental assess-
ment.
197
Yet to introduce a more sensitive and controversial issue like human rights, internal
advocates espoused a strategy of implicit management support and avoidance of the board. A
senior adviser to an executive director acknowledged the value of an incremental strategy for
human rights, observing that Bank ofcials shouldnt try and get a formal process going
because it would backre, and that [they] should basically do a human rights agenda through
stealth.
198
The executive director of the Banks Nordic Baltic Ofce agreed. He explainedthat
trust funds are a way to introduce controversial changes into the Bank: The strategy is to hurry
slowly, below the radar.
199
V. CONCLUSION
Analyzing organizational culture contributes usefully to understanding organizational
change and predicting how IOs will behave. The conditions under which norms are adopted
and internalized in an organization are shaped by its culture, including its mission, manage-
ment structure, incentive system, and decision-making process. Internalization occurs when
actors vernacularize norms, or adapt them to local meanings and existing cultural values and
practices.
200
There is no universal recipe for bringing about internalization in IOs. Rather, an
institutional t for norms must be found. They must be framed to be adaptable to the struc-
tural, functional, and cultural distinctiveness of each institution.
The recent initiative to push human rights forward at the Bank offers insights on how to
bring about organizational change. Internal advocates attempted to appeal to the dominant
subculture of economists by framing human rights as quantiable and instrumentally valuable
to achieving the economic development goals of the Bank. They called for pursuing an incre-
mental strategy from the bottom up through country-level pilot projects, rather than a top-
downofcial policy. By late 2006, the strategy became public andnolonger under the radar,
201
but it is too early to gauge its success. This approach represents one potentially effective way
of bringing human rights norms into the Banks work. Another may be to alter the existing
distribution of power within the institution (and thus the organizational culture) so that law-
yers have more decision-making power and status in relation to economists and other profes-
sional groups. A radical change of this nature, however, would probably take many years and
would require support from the leadership.
Human rights are a particularly difcult set of norms to incorporate into an economic insti-
tutionbecause doing so forces employees into a struggle betweenprinciples andpragmatism
that is, it creates a tension between normative, intangible values and goals, and practical ways
to solve problems (which may make it necessary to reconcile competing principles). Inanenvi-
ronment like the Bank where most issues are subject to cost-benet analysis, employees may
be ambivalent about principles that appear to be non-negotiable or subject to trade-offs. They
197
OPERATIONAL MANUAL, supra note 1, OP 4.01 ( Jan. 1999) (Environmental Assessment).
198
Interview with ofcial, Board of Executive Directors, World Bank, Washington, D.C. ( July 24, 2006).
199
Sveinn Aass, Introductory Remarks, in JHRTF Conference, supra note 188, at 8.
200
MERRY, supra note 12, at 39.
201
See DEV. OUTREACH, supra note 5; FAQ, Human Rights, at the Banks Web site, supra note 140.
may perceive potential costs in trying to render seemingly incommensurable values commen-
surate.
What are the consequences of economizing rather than legalizing human rights? Some crit-
ics fear that although legalizing human rights norms may limit their persuasiveness within the
Bank, an economic framework would dilute their meaning and serve as a ceiling for future
human rights standards of other development agencies. Therefore, injecting human rights too
far intothe existing power structure involves risks. As ananthropologist has observed, if human
rights are translated so fully that they blend into existing power relationships completely, they
lose their potential for social change.
202
This co-optionis part of the dilemma of humanrights
framing and vernacularization strategies: they will not induce radical, long-termchange if they
do not challenge existing power structures and are too compatible with dominant ways of
thinking.
203
At the same time, they need to resonate with local cultural understandings if they
are to appear legitimate and appealing, and thus become part of local rights consciousness.
204
This conundrum raises important questions: Can human rights be so extensively vernacu-
larized that they lose their essential core, or evencontradict their fundamental meanings? Must
human rights remain connected to a legal regime (and be linked to state obligations deriving
frominternational law) to continue to be considered human rights and not another concept
like empowerment? Ethnographic studies can illuminate the process of internalizing norms
withininternational institutions and thus help determine howto resolve such issues and devise
an appropriate strategy for organizational change.
202
MERRY, supra note 12, at 13536.
203
Id. at 136, 222.
204
Id. at 137, 222.

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WHY CULTURE MATTERS ININTERNATIONAL INSTITUTIONS:

THE MARGINALITY OF HUMANRIGHTS ATTHE WORLDBANK

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